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scientific names for seashells?

The hard, rigid outer covering of certain animals is called a shell. While many animals, particularly those that live in the sea, produce exoskeletons, usually only those of mollusks are considered to be shells. It is sometimes erroneously claimed that shells are made of chitin, but these are unrelated materials (except for their hardness and use as a covering by scientific names for seashells  and animals).

The shell (scientific names for seashells) is usually made of nacre, an organic mixture of outer layers of horny conchiolin (a scleroprotein), followed by an intermediate layer of calcite oraragonite, and then a layer of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in the form of platy crystals.

Nacre is secreted by the epithelial cells (formed by the germ layer ectoderm scientific names for seashells ) of the mantle tissue of certain species of mollusk. Mollusk blood is rich in a liquid form of calcium. In these mollusks the calcium is concentrated out from the blood where it can crystallize as calcium carbonate. The individual crystals (scientific names for seashells ) of each layer differ in shape and orientation. Nacre is continually deposited onto the inner surface of the animal's shell (the iridescent nacreous layer also known as mother of pearl), both as a means to smoothen the shell itself and as a defense against parasitic organisms and damaging detritus.

The shell (scientific names for seashells )may grow over time as the animal inside adds nacre to the leading edge near the opening. This causes the shell to become longer and wider to better accommodate the growing animal inside. More about scientific names for seashells