Scaphopoda
/ˌskafəˈpəʊdə
/plural noun Zoology
A class of molluscs that comprises the tusk shells.There are approximately 900 species of Scaphopoda, commonly called tusk shells....
- The assemblage of Bivalvia, Gastropoda and Scaphopoda contains 24 species, of which 13 are considered new, and is unequivocally the best-preserved Cretaceous molluscan fauna from the Australian region.
- It is also now generally thought that they were ancestral to the Cephalopoda and Scaphopoda as well.
Derivatives
scaphopod
- Other molluscs are present but less common, including bivalves, scaphopods, orthoconic cephalopods, tentaculitids, and small, indeterminate juvenile ammonoids.
- Moreover, cephalopods or both scaphopods and cephalopods, are closely related to, and descended from, laterally compressed helcionelloids.
- Like scaphopods, bivalves have a retractile foot which they use to burrow.
Origin
Modern Latin (plural), from Greek skaphē 'boat' + pous, pod- 'foot'.