Nutrition
How Stagnicola emarginata obtain food?
They use a scraper called a radula
for rasping and cutting their food. The radula
is a membrane with many small teeth arranged in transverse, or
sloping, and longitudinal rows (Walter 1960). These teeth are made of chitin and point
backwards. There are about 250,000 teeth on the radula.
Complex muscles move the radula in and out with the help of
cartilage, while the membrane is being slightly rotated
(Hickman et al. 2009).
What do they eat?
Stagnicola eat a variety of
things including algae, fungi, microbes, and also debris on the
surfaces of logs, rocks, and other substrates
(Wyoming game and fish department 2010).
They can also graze on the algae on the surface of the water by
feeding upside down on the surface
(Nordsieck 2011).
Circulation?
Snails have a basically open circulatory system except for a
few blood vessels (Nordsieck 2011).
An open circulatory system is where the blood bathes the organs with oxygen
and nutrients. It is then taken back up by open ended pores
(Wikipedia the free encyclopedia 2011).
Their blood is also composed of a pigment called haemocyanin.
Haemocyanin differs from oxygen in the fact that it uses copper as a binding
agent for oxygen. Snail's blood also is about 20 to 50 % of their
bodies (Nordsieck 2011).
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