This is my Knobbed Whelk Paragraph with my picture off of the Learning!

Knobbed whelk

The scientific name of the knobbed whelk is Busycon carica. This animal lives in estuaries from the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to Florida. The domain of this organism is eukaryote. The kingdom is animalia, the phylum is mollusca, and the class is gastropoda. The order is neogastropoda, the family is melongenidae, the genus is Busycon, and the species is caria. The knobbed whelk is asymmetrical, meaning that it has no symmetry. The length of the knobbed whelk is 5-9 inches. Its shell is white, tan, and gray, and its inner shell is yellow and orange. A structural adaptation is the shape and hardness of the knobbed whelks shell. It is hard and curved which protects it from predators and allows the whelk to hide deep in the shell. A behavioral adaptation of a knobbed knobbed whelk is that they are scavengers meaning that it feeds on dead animal and plant material in its habitat. Another structural adaptation that the knobbed whelk has is it has an operculum that is a little oval shaped door that the whelk can close to protect itself from predators. Some interesting facts of this organism are that they’ve been existent for more than 30 million years and they are the state shell of New Jersey and Georgia. The predators of the knobbed whelk are crabs, urchins, and sea stars. The prey of the knobbed whelk are clams, oysters, mussels, and other bivalves meaning that it’s a heterotroph. The knobbed whelk is ectothermic meaning their body temperature fluctuates with the temperature of their surroundings. These are two sources I used Knobbed Whelk - Chesapeake Bay Program and Knobbed Whelk - SC Department of Natural Resources.
By Hannah Pierce