Ctenobranch gastropods - Detailed nature illustration - Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur

Reproduction engraving of: Ctenobranch gastropods

Original title Ctenobranchia - Kammkiemen-Schnecken

Poster of Murex - Molluscs of the class of Snails or Gasteropods (Order of gilled snails, ctenobranchia)

Illustration from the book Kunstformen der Natur, which is a collection of artistic lithographs of natural sciences published by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel between 1899 and 1904.

This naturalistic illustration is part of an overall style inspired by Ernst Haeckel, which greatly influenced the emerging Art Nouveau movement at the beginning of the ^20th century. This work, illustrating the impressive beauty and great diversity of the biological world, was complemented by a certain amount of scientific information, some excerpts of which are reproduced below.

This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!

Scientific classification:

 Mollusca Phylum
Class of Gastropods (Gasteropoda)
Legion of Prosobranchs (Prosobranchia)
Order Ctenobranchia

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the poster print of Ctenobranchia - Ctenobranch gastropods :

The species-rich order of ctenobranchs belongs to the legion of prosobranch gastropods; it includes the vast majority of snails, which are distinguished by the special size, elegant shape, and varied coloration of a towering spiral shell. The characteristic formation of this coiled "snail house," into which the soft body can retract completely, is determined by the asymmetrical growth of the latter. Of the two antimeres or halves of the body, which are originally (in the oldest snails) symmetrically identical, the left half grows more strongly, the right less strongly (or vice versa). As a result, the corresponding paired organs of the "pallial complex" (paired gills, auricles, and kidneys) are reduced on one side and correspondingly more developed on the other. At the same time, the visceral sac, which contains these and other organs, is rotated from left and back to right and front; consequently, the gill, which was originally located behind the heart, ends up in front of it. With continued asymmetrical growth, the visceral sac, which protrudes from the animal's back like a hernia, spirals, and the calcareous shell, secreted by the dorsal skin, takes on the form of an ascending spiral staircase (Fig. 6-8). At the same time, when lobed or digitiform extensions develop from the folded edge of the "mantle" (the dorsal skin) and these also secrete calcareous envelopes, the spine-like or wing-like extensions of the calcareous shell are formed, which give many snail shells a particularly elegant shape (Fig. 1, 4, 5, 7, 8). Plate 53 shows only the calcareous shells of a few of the most beautiful ctenobranchs; the soft body of the animal, which fills the shell cavity, is not shown.

Species present on the naturalist board of Ctenobranch Gastropods - Murex :

• Calcar triumphans
• Conus imperialis
• Harpa ventricosa
• Murex tenuispinus
• Murex inflatus
• Fusus longicauda
• Imperial Astralium