BZ 110 Chapter Notes - Chapter 11: Aorta, Nautiloid, Adaptive Radiation
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Give examples of, and describe the prevalence of, members of the phylum mollusca. Discuss the relationship of the mollusca to other animal phyla. Octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish (the cephalopods) are some of the invertebrate world"s most adept predators. Predatory lifestyles have resulted in the evolution of large brains, complex sensory structures, rapid locomotion, grasping tentacles, and tearing mouthparts. Vertebrates may have outcompeted cephalopods because the vertebrates were also making their appearance in prehistoric seas, and some vertebrates acquired, predatory lifestyles. If success is measured by numbers of species, the molluscs are twice as successful as vertebrates. The vast majority of the nearly 100,000 living species of molluscs belongs to two classes: A coelom is a body cavity that arises in mesoderm and is lined by an sheet of mesoderm called the peritoneum. Hypothesize about the structure of an hypothetical newly discovered class of molluscs.
