| P number: | P550294 |
|---|---|
| Caption: | Natica multipunctata, a carnivorous gastropod. |
| Description: | Natica multipunctata is a carnivorous caenogastropod that lived during the Pleistocene times, during the last 2 million years. Having secreted acid onto the shell of its prey to dissolve it, modern Natica then bores a hole through to reach the flesh inside. Natica multipunctata has a thick, globose shell with a simple aperture. It coils around a cavity that forms a hole running up into the centre of the shell called an umbilicus. The outer surface is smooth, although faint growth lines are visible. 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: | Landscape |
| Size: | 368.94 KB; 1001 x 977 pixels; 85 x 83 mm (print at 300 DPI); 265 x 258 mm (screen at 96 DPI); |
| Average Rating: | Not yet rated |
| Categories: | Best of BGS Images/ Fossils |
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