| P number: | P550290 |
|---|---|
| Caption: | Galba longiscata, a fossil land snail. |
| Description: | The genus Galba first evolved in the late Jurassic times and is still found living today. Galba longiscata lived in southern England during Palaeogene (Eocene to Oligocene) times about 25-55 million years ago. It lived in fresh water where it grazed on plants and algae growing around the lake shore. Galba longiscata is a slender, elongate gastropod with a thin shell with a simple aperture. The shell is smooth on the outside, although close examination will show fine growth lines are present. It is a pulmonate gastropod, which means that it had a lung. Gastropods are molluscs with a muscular foot, eyes, tentacles, and a rasp-like feeding organ (a radula), although only the coiled or conical shell is fossilised. The earliest Cambrian species were marine, but gastropods now colonise fresh water and the land. Classification is based mainly on soft body parts, which are not fossilised, and although there is uncertainty, most fossils appear to fall into one of three groups: 1. Archaeogastropods which have two auricles in the heart, two gills and two kidneys. 2. Caenogastropods which have one gill, auricle and kidney and sometimes a siphon. 3. Pulmonates which have a lung. |
| Photographer: | Unknown |
| Copyright statement: | Unknown |
| Orientation: | Portrait |
| Size: | 67.37 KB; 502 x 1000 pixels; 43 x 85 mm (print at 300 DPI); 133 x 265 mm (screen at 96 DPI); |
| Average Rating: | Not yet rated |
| Categories: | Best of BGS Images/ Fossils |
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