Mollusks

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Mollusks Mollusks: soft, squishy, slimy, and in some cases tasty animals. Mollusks have a soft body that may be protected by a hard shell. Some mollusks have hard outer shells, such as snails, while others have a light internal shell (squids) or no shell at all (octopuses). There are three characteristics that all mollusks have in common. First of all, mollusks have a mantle. This is their soft …

…feed, they cling to rocky surfaces in shallow marine waters, and scrape algae with their radula. The class Bivalvia consists of clams, mussels, scallops, and oysters. All bivalves have two shells hinged together. To open and close their shells, bivalves have strong muscles that control the water flow over the body. Bivalves filter feed in some fresh water, but mostly marine. Their way of filter feeding has cleared the water in many fresh water lakes.