Gastropods

Besides garden snails, other gastropods include slugs, sea slugs and marine snails like limpets and periwinkles.

Gastropods live in many different environments, on land, in the sea, and in fresh water pools or streams. They use their broad flat foot for crawling, swimming or burrowing.

Many gastropods are protected in a cap-shaped or coiled shell. It is these shells that are often found as fossils. Fossil gastropods come in all shapes and sizes

The oldest gastropod fossils are over 500 million years old.