A deep-sea snail wears a multilayered suit of armor, complete with iron, new research shows. Dissecting details of the shell's structure could inspire tough new materials for use in everything from ...

The gastropod shell is an animal shell which is part of the body of a gastropod or snail. It is an external skeleton or exoskeleton, which serves not only for muscle attachment, but also for ...

Snail shells coil in response to a lopsided protein gradient across their shell mantles, finds new research. In contrast the shell mantle of limpets, whose shells do not coil, have a symmetrical ...

A mollusk discovered just a decade ago called the scaly-foot gastropod doesn’t sound like the toughest of creatures. But researchers have found that its armor could help engineers improve load-bearing ...

Snail shells are often colourful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on ...

Deep beneath the ocean’s surface lie the “black smokers“, undersea chimneys channelling superheated water from below the Earth’s crust. Completely devoid of sunlight, they are some of the most extreme ...

After spotting a beautiful shell, Beckylee Rawls didn't think twice about picking it up to get a closer look. What she never could have imagined was that she was actually holding one of the world's ...