Nutrition
Wondering what would you eat if you were a sealed gobelet?
While it is difficult to find specific
information about the nutrition of
Mesodon mitchellianus, we
can assume that it shares a similar diet with its close relative
Mesodon thyroidus.
We will also discuss some more broad information about
gastropod's diet on this page.
Gastropods can be herbivores, carnivores or scavengers in order to obtain all the nutrients necessary for survival however, most pulmonates are are herbivores (What-when-how, 2012). This means that they feed on plants both living and dead, algae, and fungi (What-when-how, 2012).
Most digestion in the class Gastropoda is extracellular, however intercellular digestion does occur in the liver where the nutrients are absorbed (Gastropoda, 2002). Because of the 180 degree torsion that occurred as a result of evolutionary change the mouth and anus are both located on the anterior region (Gastropoda, 2002). The esophagus joins the stomach at the posterior end, while the intestine departs at the anterior end forming a complete digestive system (Gastropoda, 2002).
Mesodon thyroidus
typically feeds during the nighttime hours on decaying organic plant
material or fungus (Thompson, 2006).
When placed in a jar along with other species, all snails
preferred the fungi rather than the chlorophyll-containing food,
which were both readily available to the snails (Thompson,
2006).
When held in captivity, Mesodon were fed oats,
lettuce, and fish food (Örstan, 2006).
Calcium carbonate is also necessary in the diet of
a Mesodon, which can be
found in the food they eat or from other sources such as limestone (Örstan,
2006).
Although most pulmonates are herbivores some
are carnivores and feed on earthworms or the flesh of other
animals (Gastropoda, 2002). In
carnivores, the radula contains larger teeth, but there are
fewer teeth than in the radula of the herbivores (Gastropoda,
2002)