Class Scaphopoda

1. Hemocoelic blood circulation.
2. Water is filtered in and out of the posterior end.
3. Enclosed by a tube-like calcareous shell.
4. Burrow in marine sediments.
5. Radula.
6. Deposit feeders.
7. Proboscus.

The scaphopods are the smallest class of molluscs. The main species is the dentilium. This species is a filter feeder that feeds on Foraminifera. They have a gonochoristic life cycle.

• They live in most marine environments and filter their food through the same opening as the excurrent of water is expelled.
• They lack gills but use ciliated folds for respiration instead.
• They have both a foot and fibrils called captacula to burrow themselves quickly when in danger.

1. Keen, A.Myra and Eugene Coan. 1974. Marine Molluscan Genera of Western North America, An Illustrated Key, second edition. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
2. Morton, J.E. 1967. Molluscs, fourth edition. London: Hutchinson University Library.
3. Ruhoff, Florence A. 1980. Index to the Species of Mollusca Introduced from 1850-1870. Washington DC; Smithsonian Institution Press.
4. Wilbur, Karl M. and C.M. Yonge. 1964. Physiology of Mollusca. N.Y. and London: Academic Press.