Georgia Arnold

November 15th, 2015

Science/English

Knobbed Whelk

The knobbed whelk, or Busycon carica is a shell with a large snail on the inside. The outside of the shell can be many different colors, but is usually an off white or grey color. It has a spiral design with points on the top of each spiral. A fun fact about this organism is that the males are smaller than the females. Knobbed whelks tend to live in tidal estuaries along the Atlantic coast. They are in the eukaryote domain, animalia kingdom, mollusca phylum, gastropoda class, neogatropoda order, melongenidae family, Busycon genus, and carica species. The knobbed whelks tend to live along the atlantic coast in estuaries with warm water. They are asymmetrical which means they do not have any symmetry. They have a very hard shell which is a great structural adaptation. The knobbed whelks predators include crabs, sea stars and sea urchins. They tend to feed on clams, bivalves, and oysters. They are ectothermic heterotrophs which means they rely on other organisms for food and their body temperature changes depending on the temperature around them.




I got my information off of http://www.chesapeakebay.net/ as well as http://www.dnr.sc.gov/cwcs/pdf/Knobbedwhelk.pdf