Sea Snail - Human Uses

Human Uses

A number of species of sea snails are used by humans for food, including abalone, conch, limpets, whelks (such as the North American Busycon species and the North Atlantic Buccinum undatum) and periwinkles including Littorina littorea.

The shells of sea snails are often found by humans as one kind of seashell that washes up on beaches. Because the shells of many sea snails are attractive and durable, they have been used by humans to make necklaces and other jewelry from prehistoric times to the current day.

The shells of a few species of large sea snails within the Vetigastropoda have a thick layer of nacre and have been used as a source of mother of pearl. Historically, the button industry relied on these species for a number of years.

Read more about this topic:  Sea Snail

Famous quotes containing the word human:

    By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.
    Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

    Nothing has shown more fully the prodigious ignorance of human ideas and their littleness, than the discovery of [Sir William] Herschell, that what used to be called the Milky Way is a portion of perhaps an infinite multitude of worlds!
    Horace Walpole (1717–1797)