Classification of Mollusca

Classification of Phylum Mollusca

Classification

Phylum Mollusca

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Most scientists have divided the phylum molluscs into 7 classes: Gastropoda (the univalve snails), Bivalvia (2-valved hinged shells), Cephalopoda (the squids), Polyplacophra (the chitons), Monoplacophora (cup-like shells), Scaphopoda (the tusk shells) and Aplacophora (wormlike molluscs).

The class Aplacophora comprises the two clades Caudofoveata (Chaetodermomorpha) and Solenogastera (Neomeniomorpha), which between them contain 28 families and about 320 species (en.m.wikipedia.org). these two clades look like worms and their importance to collectors is minimal. The most popular groups of marine molluscs for sea shell collectors are mainly gastropods (with thousands of species), bivalves (including brackish water and estuarine species) represent about 8,000 species, scaphopods (tusk shells) with approximately 900 species (Brusca and Brusca, 2003)[1] and polyplacophores (about 900 species).

Taxonomic Hierarchy

Kingdom Animalia

Subkingdom Bilateria

Infrakingdom Protostomia

Superphylum Lophozoa

Phylum Mollusca

Class Gastropoda Cuvier, 1797

Calss Bivalvia Linaeus, 1758

Class Cephalopoda Cuviers, 1797

Calss Scaphopoda Bronn, 1826

Class Monoplacophora Odhner, 1940

Class Polyplacophora Blainville, 18161

Class Caudofoveata Boettger, 1956

Class Solenogastra Gegenbaur, 1878

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for more information about Mollusca see this article:

References:

Image references are already available below each image

[1] Brusca, C.B. & Brusca, G.J. (2003). Taxonomy of invertebrates. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Author:

Dr. Nabavi, Seyyed Mohammad Bagher
Professor of marine biology

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