Mollusks are a highly diverse phylum (Mollusca) of invertebrate animals that constitute a major topic in zoology and evolutionary biology, encompassing classes such as Gastropoda, Bivalvia, and Cephalopoda. They are characterized by a soft, unsegmented body typically organized into head, visceral mass, and muscular foot, with many species secreting a calcareous shell from a specialized mantle. Research on mollusks addresses themes including biomineralization, neurobiology (especially in cephalopods), developmental and evolutionary genetics, functional morphology of feeding and locomotion, ecological roles in marine and freshwater systems, and their importance as model organisms in environmental toxicology and climate-change impact studies.
Interactions between hard-shelled marine mollusks such as clams and snails and their predators play a critical but largely unseen role in shaping coastal ecosystems. These organisms help stabilize shorelines, filter water ...
Ecology
Jun 3, 2026
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Octopuses are remarkably intelligent creatures, as was demonstrated by Inky the Octopus's famous escape from the National Aquarium of New Zealand through a drainpipe back to sea in 2016. A new Dartmouth study shows octopuses ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 3, 2026
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Black abalone once carpeted the rocky shores of California by the millions. The large, long-lived sea snails sustained Indigenous peoples along the coast for thousands of years, anchored a thriving 20th-century commercial ...
Evolution
Jun 3, 2026
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Translucent, speckled, and barely the size of a grain of rice, a new species of sea slug has been identified in the coastal waters of Keelung, Taiwan. Because of its minute size and distinctive black and yellow markings, ...
Plants & Animals
May 26, 2026
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Researchers have uncovered a remarkable fossil site in a remote part of Canada's Northwest Territories, offering unprecedented insight into the earliest evolution of complex animal life on Earth. Findings from the site represent ...
Evolution
May 20, 2026
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211
Southeast Asia is home to eight out of the world's 12 giant clam species and their numbers are dwindling. Addressing this issue, Dr. Neo Mei Lin, Senior Research Fellow at the NUS Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI), ...
Plants & Animals
May 7, 2026
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Today's octopuses are intelligent, remarkably flexible animals that lurk in reefs, hide in crevices, or drift through the deep sea. But new research suggests that their earliest relatives may have played a far more predatory ...
Evolution
Apr 23, 2026
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314
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," said Juliet Capulet in William Shakespeare's famous play. And the same is presumably true for mollusks, albeit with different odors. When you think about the scientific names ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 20, 2026
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For mating male octopuses, one limb is more important than all others. That is the third right arm or hectocotylus, which is used to transfer sperm to the female because the penis cannot do it directly. Losing the limb can ...
A famous 300-million-year-old fossil that was thought to be the world's oldest octopus—even featuring in the Guinness Book of Records—has turned out to be something else altogether. In what amounts to a case of mistaken identity, ...
Evolution
Apr 7, 2026
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