Three truths
- Timed
- Began about 540 million years ago · the last 13% of life's story
- Named
- ≈75,000 named living species · 4.4% of all named
- Weighed
- Part of All other animals (total minus the parts above) (≈0.13 Gt C), not measured separately.
Eukaryotes · animals · phylum
Molluscs
Mollusca
Living · roughly 75,000 described species
Soft-bodied animals that include snails, clams, octopuses and squid. Many build shells.
Key characteristics
- A muscular foot
- A mantle that often makes a shell
- Most have a rasping tongue called a radula
- Branched off
- About 570 million years ago (approximate)
- Parent lineage
- Spiralians
Child lineages
Classification
Sources
- Mollusca (Wikipedia) · Wikipedia
- TimeTree: the timescale of life · TimeTree
- Open Tree of Life · Open Tree of Life
- Tree of Life Web Project · Tree of Life Web Project