The Gastropoda or gastropods are a large taxonomic class of mollusks that are more commonly known as snails and slugs. This class of animals includes snails and slugs of all kinds and all sizes: huge numbers of marine snails and sea slugs, as well as freshwater snails and freshwater limpets, and the terrestrial (land) snails and slugs. The class Gastropoda contains a vast number of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes all the way back to the Late Cambrian. There are 611 families of gastropods, of which 202 families are extinct and found only in the fossil record. [2] Gastropoda (previously known as univalves and sometimes spelled Gasteropoda) are a major part of the phylum Mollusca and are the most highly diversified class in the phylum, with 60000 to 80000[2][3] living snail and slug species. The anatomy, behavior, feeding and reproductive adaptations of gastropods vary very significantly from one clade or group to another. Therefore, it is difficult or impossible to make more than a few general statements that are valid for all gastropods. The class Gastropoda has an extraordinary diversification of habitats. Representatives live in gardens, in woodland, in deserts, and on mountains; in small ditches, great rivers and lakes; in estuaries, mudflats, the rocky intertidal, the sandy subtidal, in the abyssal depths of the oceans including the hydrothermal vents, and numerous other ecological niches, including …
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