In the search for nudibranchs in the Marshall Islands, we often run into other photogenic creatures, including many of the shelled mollusks. This page links to most of the seashell families we have seen in the Marshalls. Live animal photos are used where available, and often photos of empty shells have been included to try to fill out the known species in the area. The intent is not to provide perfect photos of perfect specimen shells, but to illustrate what we have seen in the Marshalls, with the photos included as a check on our species identifications. Our list of Kwajalein Mollusca can be found here. This list contains habitat and abundance information on all the gastropods, bivalves, chitons and scaphopods we know of from this atoll. The listing is incomplete and usually a bit out of date; it is a work in progress and is updated periodically, consequently its format is somewhat rough.
(NOTE: Where sizes are given underneath the species name at the top of each page, it refers to the maximum size of that species we have measured, not necessarily the size of the figured specimens.)
Shelled Gastropods
Most of the shelled gastropods used to fall into the subclass Prosobranchia but DNA analysis has done away with that name, replacing it with several others, including Caenogastropoda, Neritimorpha, Patellogastropoda and Vetigastropoda. Members of all those groups are included below in alphabetic order by family.
Polyplacophora (Chitons) and Scaphopoda (Tusk shells)
