Terrestrial mollusks, easily identified in Quaternary sediments, represent a reliable tool for quantitative estimates of environmental parameters. Our study, comparing the species distribution with meteorological parameters in Europe, shows that mean temperature of the coldest month and annual thermal magnitude are the most important forcing parameters. This survey allows us to adapt the Mutual...

During the Early to Middle Miocene the Dinaride mountain chain harbored a series of intramontane lakes, collectively termed the Dinaride Lake System (DLS; Figs 1A–B; Krstić et al. 2003; Harzhauser & Mandic 2008). These tectonically isolated lakes experienced an outstanding endemic evolution of freshwater mollusks. Harzhauser & Mandic (2008, 2010) described the DLS fauna as entity and counted 11...

A total of 16 mollusk imports from South America to Spain, including clam and scallop species, were analyzed for hepatitis A virus (HAV), due to the great concern about this type of food after an important hepatitis A outbreak in eastern Spain in September 1999. In addition, clams from the stock that had caused the outbreak were also tested. Of the 17 stocks, four were positive for the presence...

Venomous animals are thought to inject the same combination of toxins for both predation and defence, presumably exploiting conserved target pharmacology across prey and predators. Remarkably, cone snails can rapidly switch between distinct venoms in response to predatory or defensive stimuli. Here, we show that the defence-evoked venom of Conus geographus contains high levels of paralytic toxi...

For several decades, the bivalve mollusk Anomalocardia brasiliana has been extracted in estuarine areas in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil. However, information on both dynamics and abundance of their populations are missing. In this context, the present study, therefore, investigated several aspects of the population structure of A. brasiliana on beaches near the estuary of the Apo...

An identified histaminergic neuron, C2, in the marine mollusk Aplysia is a complex mechanoafferent which appears to contribute to the maintenance of food arousal by means of its synaptic connections to the metacerebral cell (MCC). Because C2 also has extensive synaptic outputs to neurons other than the MCC, we studied its possible motor functions. We identified several synaptic followers of C2 ...

In Brazilian archaeological shellmounds, many species of land snails are found abundantly distributed throughout the occupational layers, forming a contextualized set of samples within the sites and offering a potential alternative to the use of charcoal for radiocarbon dating analyses. In order to confirm the effectiveness of this alternative, one needs to prove that the mollusk shells reflect...