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It is an opening in the right side of the mantle of a stylommatophoran snail or slug. Air enters through the pneumostome into the animal's single lung, the air-filled mantle cavity. [1] Inside the mantle cavity the animal has a highly vascularized area of tissue that functions as a lung.
In some nudibranchs, the mantle cavity and the original gill have disappeared altogether. Instead, the upper surface of the body has numerous club-shaped or branched projections called cerata that function as secondary gills. Secondary gills are also present in the unrelated genus Patella, in which they are found as folds within the mantle cavity.
The mantle cavity is a central feature of molluscan biology. This cavity is formed by the mantle skirt, a double fold of mantle which encloses a water space. This space contains the mollusk's gills, anus, osphradium, nephridiopores, and gonopores. The mantle cavity functions as a respiratory chamber in most mollusks. In bivalves it is usually ...
The mantle cavity is on the right side of the body, and lacks gills, instead being converted into a vascularised lung. Most species have a shell, but no operculum, although the group does also include several shell-less slugs. Pulmonates are hermaphroditic, and some groups possess love darts. [3]
The conctractile pneustome is located on the right side of the body (quite posteriorly in Otina) and the pallial cavity functions as a lung. Operculum is absent, retained only in juveniles of Blauneria heteroclita. The is one pair of contractile or partially retractable tentacles (but see Trimusculus).
The mantle creates a compartment known as the mantle cavity and is used by many mollusca as the surface where gas exchange occurs. Snails that use the mantle cavity as a lung are known as Pulmonate snails. Other snails may only have a gill. Snails in the Caenogastropoda families like Ampullariidae, have both a gill and a lung. [9]
The ctenidium hangs into the mantle cavity and increases the area available for gas exchange. [7] The word is Latinized but is derived from the Greek ktenidion which means "little comb", being a diminutive of the word kteis meaning comb.
Many marine gastropods are burrowers, and have a siphon that extends out from the mantle edge. Sometimes the shell has a siphonal canal to accommodate this structure. A siphon enables the animal to draw water into their mantle cavity and over the gill. They use the siphon primarily to "taste" the water to detect prey from a distance.