How do molluscs get their food?

Answer 1

Molluscs have many different ways of getting their food, because molluscs have filled many different ecological niches. For some, they CATCH it: predatory squid and octopus for example, are molluscs with well develeped eyes and quick manueverability for hunting prey. Others are filter feeders, using their mucous lined gills to capture food that is in the water column. For example, when oysters (a mollusc) were plentiful in the Chesapeake Bay, it was almost crystal clear, since they were effectively taking out the life and organic debris that was floating in the water. Other molluscs are grazers, and they use a rasp-like structure on their muscular foot to scrape away at mats of algae. You can see this phenomenon if you've ever seen a snail in a fish tank: you can actually see its feeding trail as it grazes on the algae on the sides of the tank. Not all snails are gentle herbivores though: the venomous cone snail hunts for marine worms along the bottom of the sea, stining and paralyzing their prey before they consume them. So it is really not a simple answer to the question of how do molluscs get their food: the answer depends on WHICH mollusc you are talking about, and there are many feeding mechanisms to discover in your research on this topic.