There are lots of different sorts of Mollusc – all the shells you find at the seaside (apart from barnacles) come from molluscs. The group or phylum also includes snails, slugs, octopuses and squid. All of them have hard ‘shells’ but these may be inside their bodies not outside! Bivalves such as mussels, cockles and oysters have two parts to their shells which are hinged together.

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0 - 0.8m       0.8m to 1.5m   Marine/estuarine fauna of burrowing and encrusting bivalves and marine group of snails 1.5m to 2.5m       2.5m to 3.5m   Broken marine burrowing bivalves with a few snails.   3.5m to 5.5m   Mixed broken marine bivalves but also terrestrial snails   5.5m   Mainly terrestial molluscs which were able to survive dry seasons 5.6m       5.8m       5.8m to 7m