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45-408: The preserve is named for a previous resident, Ernest Otter a one-time owner who had occupied the property until 1997. Otter is credited for the unique whelk shell terraces that define the preserve’s signature man-made feature. The initial preserve was established with a 1.77 acre purchase in 2004 followed by an additional acquisition of .68 acres in 2007. Otter Mound and the property surrounding it

90-531: A warning , when they are poisonous or contain stinging cells , or to camouflage them on the brightly colored hydroids , sponges , and seaweeds on which many of the species are found. Lateral outgrowths on the body of nudibranchs are called cerata . These contain an outpocketing of digestive glands called the diverticula . The sensory organs of gastropods include olfactory organs , eyes, statocysts and mechanoreceptors . Gastropods have no hearing. In terrestrial gastropods (land snails and slugs),

135-487: A few ciliary feeders, in which the radula is reduced or absent. Land-dwelling species can chew up leaves, bark, fruit and decomposing animals while marine species can scrape algae off the rocks on the seafloor. Certain species such as the Archaeogastropda maintain horizontal rows of slender marginal teeth. In some species that have evolved into endoparasites, such as the eulimid Thyonicola doglieli , many of

180-400: A gastropod is called a protoconch . Most shelled gastropods have a one piece shell (with exceptional bivalved gastropods ), typically coiled or spiraled, at least in the larval stage. This coiled shell usually opens on the right-hand side (as viewed with the shell apex pointing upward). Numerous species have an operculum , which in many species acts as a trapdoor to close the shell. This

225-446: A gastropod is usually adapted to the food that a species eats. The simplest gastropods are the limpets and abalones , herbivores that use their hard radula to rasp at seaweeds on rocks. Many marine gastropods are burrowers, and have a siphon that extends out from the mantle edge. Sometimes the shell has a siphonal canal to accommodate this structure. A siphon enables the animal to draw water into their mantle cavity and over

270-491: A marine environment. Gastropods have a worldwide distribution, from the near Arctic and Antarctic zones to the tropics. They have become adapted to almost every kind of existence on earth, having colonized nearly every available medium. In habitats where not enough calcium carbonate is available to build a really solid shell, such as on some acidic soils on land, various species of slugs occur, and also some snails with thin, translucent shells, mostly or entirely composed of

315-612: A popular street food in Victorian London, typically located close to public houses and theatres. In Scotland , the word "whelk" is also used to mean the periwinkle ( Littorina littorea ), family Littorinidae . In the English-speaking islands of the West Indies , the word whelks or wilks (this word is both singular and plural) is applied to a large edible top shell , Cittarium pica , also known as

360-402: A reference to the fact that the animal's "foot" is positioned below its guts. The earlier name "univalve" means one valve (or shell), in contrast to bivalves , such as clams, which have two valves or shells. At all taxonomic levels, gastropods are second only to insects in terms of their diversity . Gastropods have the greatest numbers of named mollusk species. However, estimates of

405-507: A swirling, tapered shell. Many are eaten by humans, such as the common whelk of the North Atlantic. Most whelks belong to the family Buccinidae and are known as "true whelks." Others, such as the dog whelk , belong to several sea snail families that are not closely related. True whelks (family Buccinidae) are carnivorous, and feed on annelids, crustaceans, mussels and other molluscs, drilling holes through shells to gain access to

450-504: A tropical hardwood hammock, Fifty-seven species of birds and one hundred and twenty-seven plant species have been recorded at Otter Mound Preserve. Other wildlife observed includes opossum, armadillo, raccoon, grey squirrel and even the occasional bobcat. (Mosquitoes can be quite fierce once one enters the cooling canopy of the trees.) Otter Mound's signature man-made feature is the many terraced garden plots created with thousands of whelk shells. Ernest Otter created these terraced gardens in

495-472: Is a part of the behavior of mating gastropods with some pulmonate families of land snails creating and utilizing love darts , the throwing of which have been identified as a form of sexual selection . The main aspects of the life cycle of gastropods include: The diet of gastropods differs according to the group considered. Marine gastropods include some that are herbivores , detritus feeders, predatory carnivores , scavengers , parasites , and also

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540-422: Is difficult. The class Gastropoda has an extraordinary diversification of habitats . Representatives live in gardens, woodland, deserts, and on mountains; in small ditches, great rivers, and lakes; in estuaries , mudflats , the rocky intertidal , the sandy subtidal, the abyssal depths of the oceans, including the hydrothermal vents , and numerous other ecological niches, including parasitic ones. Although

585-433: Is muscular, and the second is mutagenetic . The effects of torsion are primarily physiological. The organism develops by asymmetrical growth, with the majority of growth occurring on the left side. This leads to the loss of right-side anatomy that in most bilaterians is a duplicate of the left side anatomy. The essential feature of this asymmetry is that the anus generally lies to one side of the median plane. The gill-combs ,

630-470: Is not the most important sense, because they are mainly nocturnal animals. The nervous system of gastropods includes the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system . The central nervous system consists of ganglia connected by nerve cells. It includes paired ganglia: the cerebral ganglia, pedal ganglia, osphradial ganglia, pleural ganglia, parietal ganglia and the visceral ganglia. There are sometimes also buccal ganglia. The radula of

675-640: Is probably not even a mollusk. As such, it's not until the Ordovician that the first crown-group members arise. By the Ordovician period the gastropods were a varied group present in a range of aquatic habitats. Commonly, fossil gastropods from the rocks of the early Palaeozoic era are too poorly preserved for accurate identification. Still, the Silurian genus Poleumita contains fifteen identified species. Fossil gastropods were less common during

720-460: Is usually made of a horn-like material, but in some molluscs it is calcareous. In the land slugs, the shell is reduced or absent, and the body is streamlined. Some gastropods have adult shells which are bottom heavy due to the presence of a thick, often broad, convex ventral callus deposit on the inner lip and adapical to the aperture which may be important for gravitational stability. Some sea slugs are very brightly colored. This serves either as

765-593: The British Isles , Belgium and the Netherlands ( wulk / wullok ), the word is used for a number of species in the family Buccinidae , especially Buccinum undatum , an edible European and Northern Atlantic species. In the British Isles, the common name "dog whelk" is used for Nucella lapillus (family Muricidae) and for Nassarius species (family Nassariidae ). Historically, they were

810-648: The Palaeozoic era than bivalves . Most of the gastropods of the Palaeozoic era belong to primitive groups, a few of which still survive. By the Carboniferous period many of the shapes seen in living gastropods can be matched in the fossil record, but despite these similarities in appearance the majority of these older forms are not directly related to living forms. It was during the Mesozoic era that

855-479: The Planorbidae , have hemoglobin as the respiratory protein. In one large group of sea slugs, the gills are arranged as a rosette of feathery plumes on their backs, which gives rise to their other name, nudibranchs . Some nudibranchs have smooth or warty backs with no visible gill mechanism, such that respiration may likely take place directly through the skin. Gastropods have open circulatory system and

900-474: The continental slope and the continental rise are home to the highest diversity, while the continental shelf and abyssal depths have a low diversity of marine gastropods. Gastropods are found in a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial habitats, from deep ocean trenches to deserts. Some of the more familiar and better-known gastropods are terrestrial gastropods (the land snails and slugs). Some live in fresh water, but most named species of gastropods live in

945-513: The fossil record, while 476 are currently extant with or without a fossil record. Gastropoda (previously known as univalves and sometimes spelled "Gasteropoda") are a major part of the phylum Mollusca, and are the most highly diversified class in the phylum , with 65,000 to 80,000 living snail and slug species . The anatomy , behavior, feeding, and reproductive adaptations of gastropods vary significantly from one clade or group to another, so stating many generalities for all gastropods

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990-483: The magpie or West Indian top shell , family Trochidae . In Japan, whelks ( ツブ, 螺 , tsubu ) are frequently used in sashimi and sushi . In Vietnam, they are served in a dish called Bún ốc - vermicelli with sea snails. Golbaengi-muchim ( 골뱅이 무침 ) is a Korean dish consisting of whelks and with chili sauce in a salad with cold noodles. It has been a very popular side dish with alcohol for many generations. In Australia and New Zealand , species of

1035-446: The olfactory organs , the foot slime-gland , nephridia , and the auricle of the heart are single or at least are more developed on one side of the body than the other. Furthermore, there is only one genital orifice, which lies on the same side of the body as the anus. Furthermore, the anus becomes redirected to the same space as the head. This is speculated to have some evolutionary function, as prior to torsion, when retracting into

1080-584: The Calusa natives, this raised area produced an environment that resulted in a tropical hardwood hammock community. This plant community also occurs naturally in South Florida and is a common site in the Everglades . Hammocks primarily occur on the highest elevations (e.g., shell mounds) where flooding rarely occurs and are, therefore, prime areas for human habitation. This preserve is representative of

1125-476: The adult stage—though in some, the coiling may not be very visible, for example in cowries . In a number of families of species, such as all the various limpets , the shell is coiled only in the larval stage, and is a simple conical structure after that. In the scientific literature, gastropods were described as "gasteropodes" by Georges Cuvier in 1795. The word gastropod comes from Greek γαστήρ ( gastḗr 'stomach') and πούς ( poús 'foot'),

1170-540: The body cavity, and digestive glands opening into the stomach . Courtship is a part of mating behavior in some gastropods, including some of the Helicidae . Again, in some land snails, an unusual feature of the reproductive system of gastropods is the presence and utilization of love darts . In many marine gastropods other than the opisthobranchs , there are separate sexes ( dioecious / gonochoric ); most land gastropods, however, are hermaphrodites . Courtship

1215-423: The deep-sea floor has been studied biologically. The total number of living species of freshwater snails is about 4,000. Recently extinct species of gastropods (extinct since 1500) number 444, 18 species are now extinct in the wild (but still exist in captivity), and 69 species are "possibly extinct". The number of prehistoric (fossil) species of gastropods is at least 15,000 species. In marine habitats,

1260-487: The earliest representatives of the group appearing in the Late Cambrian ( Chippewaella , Strepsodiscus ), though their only gastropod character is a coiled shell, so they could lie in the stem lineage, if they are gastropods at all. Earliest Cambrian organisms like Helcionella , Barskovia and Scenella are no longer considered gastropods, and the tiny coiled Aldanella of earliest Cambrian time

1305-491: The family Buccinidae . These are sometimes called Busycon whelks . In addition, the unrelated invasive murex Rapana venosa is referred to as the Veined rapa whelk or Asian rapa whelk in the family Muricidae . In Brazil , there is a very popular Afro-Brazilian divination game practiced by older women of African ancestry called jogo de búzios (game of whelks), which uses empty shells of these gastropods . In

1350-504: The genus Cabestana (family Ranellidae ) are called predatory whelks , and species of Penion (family Buccinidae ) are called siphon whelks . Gastropoda Gastropods ( / ˈ ɡ æ s t r ə p ɒ d z / ), commonly known as slugs and snails , belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda ( / ɡ æ s ˈ t r ɒ p ə d ə / ). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and from

1395-411: The gill. They use the siphon primarily to "taste" the water to detect prey from a distance. Gastropods with siphons tend to be either predators or scavengers. Almost all marine gastropods breathe with a gill , but many freshwater species, and the majority of terrestrial species, have a pallial lung . The respiratory protein in almost all gastropods is hemocyanin , but one freshwater pulmonate family,

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1440-516: The land. There are many thousands of species of sea snails and slugs , as well as freshwater snails , freshwater limpets , land snails and slugs . The class Gastropoda is a diverse and highly successful class of mollusks within the phylum Mollusca. It contains a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes back to the Late Cambrian . As of 2017 , 721 families of gastropods are known, of which 245 are extinct and appear only in

1485-422: The mid 1950s. There is a small parking area and a bike rack located at the entrance along Addison Court. A nature surface trail with benches and interpretive signs loops through the preserve allowing views of the historic whelk terracing along its path. The path is not handicap accessible and there are no comfort facilities available. Whelk Whelks are any of several carnivorous sea snail species with

1530-572: The name "snail" can be, and often is, applied to all the members of this class, commonly this word means only those species with an external shell big enough that the soft parts can withdraw completely into it. Slugs are gastropods that have no shell or a very small, internal shell; semislugs are gastropods that have a shell that they can partially retreat into but not entirely. The marine shelled species of gastropods include species such as abalone , conches , periwinkles , whelks , and numerous other sea snails that produce seashells that are coiled in

1575-486: The olfactory organs, located on the tips of the four tentacles , are the most important sensory organ. The chemosensory organs of opisthobranch marine gastropods are called rhinophores . The majority of gastropods have simple visual organs, eye spots either at the tip or base of the tentacles. However, "eyes" in gastropods range from simple ocelli that only distinguish light and dark, to more complex pit eyes , and even to lens eyes . In land snails and slugs, vision

1620-509: The origin of Patellogastropoda and Heterobranchia , whereas fewer changes occurred between the ancestors of Vetigastropoda (only tRNAs D, C and N) and Caenogastropoda (a large single inversion , and translocations of the tRNAs D and N). Within Heterobranchia, gene order seems relatively conserved, and gene rearrangements are mostly related with transposition of tRNA genes. The first gastropods were exclusively marine, with

1665-555: The protein conchiolin . Snails such as Sphincterochila boissieri and Xerocrassa seetzeni have adapted to desert conditions. Other snails have adapted to an existence in ditches, near deepwater hydrothermal vents , in oceanic trenches 10,000 meters (6 miles) below the surface, the pounding surf of rocky shores , caves , and many other diverse areas. Gastropods can be accidentally transferred from one habitat to another by other animals, e.g. by birds . Snails are distinguished by an anatomical process known as torsion , where

1710-419: The shell, first the posterior end would get pulled in, and then the anterior. Now, the front can be retracted more easily, perhaps suggesting a defensive purpose. Gastropods typically have a well-defined head with two or four sensory tentacles with eyes, and a ventral foot. The foremost division of the foot is called the propodium. Its function is to push away sediment as the snail crawls. The larval shell of

1755-403: The soft tissues. Whelks use chemoreceptors to locate their prey. Many have historically been used, or are still used, by humans and other animals as food. In a 100-gram ( 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -ounce) reference serving of whelk, there are 570 kilojoules (137 kilocalories) of food energy , 24 g of protein, 0.34 g of fat, and 8 g of carbohydrates. Dog whelk , a predatory species,

1800-593: The standard gastropod features are strongly reduced or absent. A few sea slugs are herbivores and some are carnivores. The carnivorous habit is due to specialisation. Many gastropods have distinct dietary preferences and regularly occur in close association with their food species. Some predatory carnivorous gastropods include: cone shells , Testacella , Daudebardia , turrids , ghost slugs and others. Gastropods exhibit an important degree of variation in mitochondrial gene organization when compared to other animals. Main events of gene rearrangement occurred at

1845-715: The total number of gastropod species vary widely, depending on cited sources. The number of gastropod species can be ascertained from estimates of the number of described species of Mollusca with accepted names: about 85,000 (minimum 50,000, maximum 120,000). But an estimate of the total number of Mollusca, including undescribed species, is about 240,000 species. The estimate of 85,000 mollusks includes 24,000 described species of terrestrial gastropods. Different estimates for aquatic gastropods (based on different sources) give about 30,000 species of marine gastropods, and about 5,000 species of freshwater and brackish gastropods. Many deep-sea species remain to be discovered, as only 0.0001% of

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1890-437: The transport fluid is hemolymph . Hemocyanin is present in the hemolymph as the respiratory pigment. The primary organs of excretion in gastropods are nephridia , which produce either ammonia or uric acid as a waste product. The nephridium also plays an important role in maintaining water balance in freshwater and terrestrial species. Additional organs of excretion, at least in some species, include pericardial glands in

1935-406: The visceral mass of the animal rotates 180° to one side during development, such that the anus is situated more or less above the head. This process is unrelated to the coiling of the shell, which is a separate phenomenon. Torsion is present in all gastropods, but the opisthobranch gastropods are secondarily untorted to various degrees. Torsion occurs in two stages. The first, mechanistic stage

1980-655: Was a home site for early settlers in the Caxambas Village who worked in the Marco Island clamming industry. The "Mound" on which Otter Mound Preserve sits was constructed by the Calusa native inhabitants from oyster , southern surf clam , lightning whelk , and other shellfish species and dates between 700 AD – 1200 AD. Otter Mound is a man-made tropical hardwood hammock formed by the Shell mound created by

2025-479: Was used in antiquity to make a rich red dye that improves in color as it ages. The common name "whelk" is also spelled welk or even wilk . The species, genera and families referred to by this common name vary a great deal from one geographic area to another. In the United States , whelk refers to several large edible species in the genera Busycon and Busycotypus , which are now classified in

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