Patellogastropoda
The True Limpets
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# of Described Species: First Appearance: Habitats: Intertidal, Subtdal, and deep sea Shapes: Limpets Feeding Types: Generally grazers |
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# of Described Species: First Appearance: Habitats: Intertidal, Subtdal, and deep sea Shapes: Limpets Feeding Types: Generally grazers |
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| A visit to almost any rocky intertidal habitat in the world will reveal these wonderful, cap-shaped gastropods. Tenaciously clinging to the rocks with their hard shells to protect them, they have many different behaviors in their environments associated with their feeding strategies. But the true limpets are not restricted to the intertidal, they can be found beneath the waves, in the deep sea associated with hydrothermal vent habitats, and there are even some species which live exclusively on drift-wood that has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. | All marine and all limpet-shaped and many live in the intertidal zone. This group was previously included within the "Archaeogastropoda". The shell is nacreous in some taxa and the operculum is absent in adults. Their radula has several teeth in each row, some of which are strengthened by the incorporation of metallic ions such as iron. |
