Nutrition

      For feeding, the Pulmonates crawl over surfaces and stuff material from the ground into their mouths. (Dillon, 2000) Certain chemicals that give evidence of food attract the snails and can stimulate feeding once the snail arrives at the food source. (Dillon, 2000) The snails have a proboscis which is a muscular organ containing the trophic apparatus and is the first thing that comes into contact with the substrate. (Dillon, 2000) When the proboscis comes over a section of substrate, the jaws open and radula is protruded, which rips off the substrate. (Dillon, 2000) The material then passes into the oeseophagus and goes through the digestive tract. (Dillon, 2000)

      The genus Vertigo has weakly to strongly arched jaws of numerous wide flat ribs, separated by narrow thin intervals. (Pilsbry, 1948) Their teeth are all fundamentally tricuspid with numerous interstitial cusplets. (Pilsbry, 1948)