Many gastropods are predators that drill or bore through their prey's body covering (shell, exoskeleton, etc.) using a combination of radular scraping and chemical dissolution. Examples I know well include moon snails (Euspira (= Lunatia) spp. (Naticidae)), "whelks" (e.g., Nucella spp. (Muricidae), Buccinum spp. (Buccinidae)), but I suspect there are many others.
I am gathering information on gastropods that feed in this way, and would like to assemble a list of as many (or all) species that do so as possible. There is a lot of literature on fossil borehole/drilling predation, but I am interested in EXTANT species. Are there any good resources (reviews, book chapters, etc.) that might present such a list? Are there other taxa within the Gastropods beside the Muricidae, Naticidae, and Buccinidae that contain boring/drilling predatory species? Just how many gastropods do this?
Hi Brady,
I know terebrids drill holes too. I have also added some interesting papers that might be of use.
Cheers
Deepak
Brady:
This link provided interesting insights on the Gastropods boring behavior in an Aquarium:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022098187900499
Best
Syed
Hi Brady, find a comprehensive list of boring gastropods in the Table 2 of this paper by Michal Kowalewski
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.467.5934&rep=rep1&type=pdf
You may obtain a decent estimate of the total recent species diversity of each family (and global georeferenced occurrences) at the Ocean Biogeographic Information System
http://www.iobis.org/
Best regards
Marcelo
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