Snails and slugs eat with a jaw and a flexible band of thousands of microscopic teeth, called a radula. The radula scrapes up, or rasps, food particles, and the jaw cuts off larger pieces of food, like a leaf, to be rasped by the radula.

Predatory pulmonate land slugs, such as the ghost slug, use elongated razor-sharp teeth on the radula to seize and devour earthworms. Predatory cephalopods, such as squid , use the radula for cutting prey.

The slug’s mouth, called a radula, has a species-specific arrangement of “special teeth” used for grinding up their food; The pneumostome is a breathing pore or respiratory opening found on the side of the slug; The mantle covers the essentials (genital, anus, and lungs) behind the head; The head consists of the radula and the tentacles

The radula in slugs has a number of minute teeth arranged in transverse rows with one central tooth (C), many lateral teeth (L), and numbers of marginal teeth (M) . There was no information about common slug radula structure in Iran and slugs infection with parasitic helminths.

Oct 7, 2020 · The radula is the toothed, ribbon like organ that carries numerous rasping teeth. The radula is unique to the phylum mollusca and can be found in all classes of the phylum except the bivalvia. In gastropods the radula is typically well developed. It is the organ that snails and slugs use to collect food particles and delivers them to the ...

3 days ago · The radula is the defining characteristic that sets gastropods, the class to which snails and slugs belong, apart. This unique organ resides within the snail’s mouth and is used for a variety of feeding purposes, depending on the species. ... The number of teeth on a snail’s radula can vary dramatically from species to species. A typical ...

Dec 5, 2019 · Nearly all the sea slugs, just like nearly all the molluscs (except the bivalves), possess a radula in the buccal cavity for feeding. The radula is used not unlike a combination of teeth and tongue to rasp at, puncture, slash or grip the prey for ingestion.

Aug 7, 2023 · Snails have teeth generally 20 000 or more and while they have a similar organisation with central and lateral teeth, their shape is often dependent on the scraping or cutting of their preferred food sources. Teeth are positioned on a …

Slugs have thousands of teeth. Like a circular drill bit, the tooth-packed radula literally rasps off the slug’s food so it can be swallowed and digested easily.

Risbec described a radula with two lateral teeth on each side and no rachidian, while both Ralph and Baba reported three lateral teeth on each side, the inner two teeth varying in denticulation in each species.