User:Abyssal/Portal:Ordovician/Natural world articles/17

The molluscs or mollusks, compose the large phylum of invertebrate animals known as the phylum Mollusca. Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. Molluscs are the largest marine phylum, comprising about 23% of all the named marine organisms. Numerous molluscs also live in freshwater and terrestrial habitats. They are highly diverse, not only in size and in anatomical structure, but also in behaviour and in habitat. The phylum is typically divided into 9 or 10 taxonomic classes, of which two are entirely extinct. Cephalopod molluscs, such as squid, cuttlefish and octopus, are among the most neurologically advanced of all invertebrates—and either the giant squid or the colossal squid is the largest known invertebrate species. The gastropods (snails and slugs) are by far the most numerous molluscs in terms of classified species. The scientific study of molluscs is called malacology. The three most universal features defining modern molluscs are a mantle with a significant cavity used for breathing and excretion, the presence of a radula, and the structure of the nervous system.

Good evidence exists for the appearance of gastropods, cephalopods and bivalves in the Cambrian period. However, the evolutionary history both of molluscs' emergence from the ancestral Lophotrochozoa and of their diversification into the well-known living and fossil forms are still subjects of vigorous debate among scientists. (see more...)