What do molluscs eat?
Virtually every feeding habit is carried out by the molluscs, they may be herbivores, carnivores, scavengers, deposit feeders, filter feeders or parasites, these strategies are carried out by some members of almost all the major groups, there are some generalizations however that can be usefully made. As the phylum is so varied, this is split down into the major groups: Gastropoda – gastropod molluscs include the common garden snails and slugs that feed on plant matter. Gastropods possess a radula, a conveyor-belt like structure covered in teeth hardened with chitin that can vary from 16 to the thousands. The radula rasps away at plant material breaking open cell walls to help in digestion. Some predatory gastropods have a radula that is designed to grind away at the shells of other molluscs such as bivalves to gain access to the contents when they inject a poison which relaxes the muscle holding the shells together allowing the predator to feed. The most specialized of such predatory
