Mollusk Analysis

A morphological feature in Mollusks are their soft bodies. Every animal in the mollusk family is a soft body. Mollusks are squid, snails, octopus, etc. Since the mollusks have a soft body it means that they are more fragile and they will have trouble supporting their bodies in terrestrial environments. The phylum mollusca is divided into 5 classes, pelecypods, include oysters, clams, muscles. Gastropods include, snails, sea slugs. Cephalopods includes squid octopus. Scaphopods include tooth shells.  Polyplacophora include chitons. 
In the mollusks we dissected, there was not many similar features between the clam and the squid. the clam had a really hard shell and made it hard for us to rip open. the squid was soft and squishy and it was easy to cut open. the inside of the clam was just a bunch of body parts packed into a small area. The squid's body parts were nicely spread for us to examine. 
The mantle on the clam was there to help protect itself from predators. It also kept everything in place inside the shell. The clam uses its foot to move itself place to place and bury itself. the squid uses water as a jet to move itself. 
The squids and octopuses have camouflage features to protect themselves from predators and gastropods have hard shells. The squids use camouflage so a predator wont eat them. 
The feeding methods of clams is filtering water and getting the food from the water, and the snails eat from the surface they are on to eat things. 
Humans and mollusks have similar body parts, they just look different. We both have hearts, reproduction organs, and we both have ways to breath. 
Mussels have a special adaption to surviving strong wave action and its by using their foot to dig into the ground and hang on for dear life.
Octopus are considered to be very intelligent because of their significant abilities. They have good navigation abilities, and very good predatory techniques. 
There are many examples why mollusks are important to the ecological and economic feature. They are obviously a good food source for people and other sea animals. They are good for cleaning the water around them as well.  

New England Aquarium

    On march 31st, our Marine Biology class went to the New England aquarium in Boston. There was a lot of interesting and cool sea animals there.

    The Animals that were at the aquarium all behaved in different ways. I bet they would act different in nature but this was probably as close as it gets to how they act in the wild. The people working there try to keep it as real as possible for the animals there. The Penguins were rather calm and they just swam around or relaxed on the rocks. The only different thing that happened is when two Penguins began to mate on the rocks. It was pretty amusing. The fish in the aquarium acted just like how they would in a fish take. They just swam around and ate what the employees gave them.

   In Marine Biology and at the Aquarium, I learned about how important Marine conservation is. It is sad that buildings an homes are made on top of where fish use to hide and since we build things along beaches, we are killing many species of marine life. Mangroves are roots and vines that small fish hide in  when they feel they are being attacked or frightened and they are key for a fish survival. Small fish use them because a big fish cannot swim through the congested  space the mangroves make. Coral are also important to leave in the ocean because they work like mangroves. They are good for small fish to hide in.


http://www.neaq.org/animals_and_exhibits/index.php













This field trip enhanced my learning because I didn't just hear about the wild life, I saw it all happen in front of me and watched the sea animals in their environment.