Powelliphanta - Life Habits

Life Habits

Species in the genus Powelliphanta are carnivorous and eat mostly earthworms or slugs. They are nocturnal. They need moist surroundings and thus they live buried under leaf mould and logs.

They can live for 20 years or more and are slow to mature, reaching sexual maturity around 5 years of age. They are hermaphrodites, having both male and female characteristics. They lay 5 to 10 large eggs a year.

Powelliphanta uses a rudimentary radula to devour its prey. The radula is like a belt of teeth, which scrapes chunks of flesh into the oesophagus. Far from being ingested whole, its prey are subjected to prolonged radulation.

Read more about this topic:  Powelliphanta

Famous quotes containing the words life and/or habits:

    The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it.
    Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)

    The only ones who are really grateful for the war are the wild ducks, such a lot of them in the marshes of the Rhone and so peaceful ... because all the shot-guns have been taken away completely taken away and nobody can shoot with them nobody at all and the wild ducks are very content. They act as of they had never been shot at, never, it is so easy to form old habits again, so very easy.
    Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)