Abstract
WITH reference to the note on Crepidula in NATURE of December 7 (No. 2197, p. 187) it may be of interest to your readers to know that during some recent researches on this animal I have been able to confirm the necessity for investigating how far the presence of the slipper-limpet (Crepidula fornicata) is a menace to successful oysterculture on the Kent and Essex coasts. It has been believed by various naturalists that Crepidula takes the same kind of food as the oyster, but on this point there exists no definite information. During an investigation of this matter I discovered the manner in which the animal feeds, from which there can be no doubt whatever as to the nature of its food. The mode of feeding in Crepidula is ithe same in principle as that of the oyster, that is, there is an ingoing and an outgoing current of water kept up in the mantle-cavity, while between the two currents the gill acts as a strainer, retaining even very fine particles of suspended matter, which eventually—by one of two ways—reach the mouth.1
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ORTON, J. The Feeding Habits of Crepidula. Nature 88, 213 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/088213b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/088213b0
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