Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
Cadillac, officially the Cadillac Division of the General Motors Company, is a luxury car maker, owned by General Motors. During the 20th century, Cadillacs were so highly thought of that the phrase "the Cadillac of x" was coined, meaning that something of excellent quality and better than everything else in its category.

The company is one of the oldest car companies and was founded in 1902. By the 1950s and 1960s, it had become famous for making high-quality and luxurious cars, often setting the standard for automotive styling. Cadillac had largely declined by the 1980s and lost much of its market to other companies. Since the early 2000s, Cadillac has regained some of its lost reputation. However, it is not the same company it once was. Cadillac is based in Detroit, Michigan. Many of its cars are available as a V-model, which is a sports package.

Current
 CT4
 CT5
 CT6
 XT4
 XT5
 XT6
 Escalade
Discontinued
 Eldorado
 Seville
 DeVille
 Fleetwood
 Brougham
 Cimarron
 Catera
 ATS
 BLS
 CTS
 DTS
 SRX
 STS
 XTS

Gallery

Other websites
 Cadillac.com – Official site
 Cadillac.GM.ca  – Official site of Cadillac in Canada
 CadillacEurope.com – Official site of Cadillac in Europe
 CadillacOwners.com – Community of Cadillac owners and enthusiasts with pictures, classifieds, auctions, discussions, tech tips and more.
 History and Picture Cadillac in Russian 

General Motors
Automobile brands
Chevrolet, also known as Chevy, and formally the Chevrolet Division of the General Motors Company, is a car company owned by General Motors. Chevrolet is known for producing popular, affordable cars. Chevrolet produces the Corvette, one of the most famous sports cars in the world.

Chevrolet was created in 1911 by Louis Chevrolet. Louis was a racing car driver. Chevrolet started using its "bow-tie" logo in 1913. It could have come from a wallpaper Chevrolet saw in a hotel. It could also be a version of the cross on the Swiss flag, due to Chevrolet having been born in Switzerland.

In 1917, Chevrolet combined with General Motors. In 2002, GM acquired the recently bankrupt Daewoo Motors company of South Korea, and in 2011, the brand was folded into Chevrolet making the marque global except for Australasia.

Models
Models

Current
Some of these vehicles also come, or used to come in, hybrid-electric versions.
 Avalanche
 Aveo/Sonic
 Camaro
 Caprice PPV
 Chevrolet City Express (a rebadged Nissan transit van)
 Corvette
 Cruze
 Colorado
 Equinox
 Express Commercial Van
 Malibu and Malibu Hybrid
 Silverado
 Spark
 Suburban
 Tahoe
 TrailBlazer (not sold in North America)
 Trax/Tracker
 Traverse
 Volt, a plug-in hybrid
 Bolt EV, a battery-electric vehicle

Discontinued
 Caprice
 Prizm
 Metro
 Tracker
 Uplander
 Impala
 Lumina
 Chevrolet Astro
 Chevrolet Cobalt
 Chevrolet Optra
 Chevrolet S10 Blazer
 K5 Blazer
 Chevrolet Evanda/Epica
 Chevrolet Rezzo
 Chevrolet Orlando

Other websites
 Official Chevrolet Site
 Chevrolet in Canada 

General Motors
A sports car is a small, fast, quick-turning automobile. Most of them only have two seats or very small seats in the back.

Name
A sports car is different from an automobile for racing. The sports car is allowed to drive on a normal road, whereas race cars cannot.

History
Since the invention of automobiles, people have tried to make them faster. The first sports cars were made to be raced by rich people.

Layout
There are different versions of sports cars. There are automobiles with the motor in the front and those with rear-wheel drive. Examples are the Chevrolet Corvette or the Honda S2000. There are also cars with the motor behind the passengers, in the middle of the car. One of the first cars like this was the Lamborghini Miura. Porsche uses a different layout. The motor in a Porsche 911 is in the back, behind the rear wheels. Since the 1980s, a lot of sports cars have four-wheel drive. The motor in the front and front-wheel drive is only used in a few sports cars.
Seats
Most sports cars only have two seats. There are some sports cars that also have small seats in the back. For example, the Porsche 911. The McLaren F1 has three seats, with driver sitting in the middle.

Records
Sports cars are often fast and expensive cars.

 The fastest sportscar is the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. The maximum speed is .

Examples
These are some sports cars:
 Audi R8
 Bugatti Veyron
 Chevrolet Corvette
 Honda S2000
 Lamborghini Aventador
 Porsche 911

References

Sports cars
Oldsmobile was an automobile maker that was previously owned by General Motors. Oldsmobile was known for producing innovative and iconic vehicles with iconic engines, such as the Oldsmobile 88, Oldsmobile 98, Oldsmobile Cutlass, and Oldsmobile 442. The company went defunct in 2004 due to declining sales. However, these cars are now popular and are still driven today thanks to the resale of their cars.

History
Oldsmobile was founded in 1897 as the "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds located in Lansing, Michigan as a competitor to Buick and Cadillac. It was the first high-volume gasoline-powered car manufacturer in 1901. That same year, Oldsmobile was renamed Olds Motor Works and moved to a new plant in Detroit. Not only that, Oldsmobile had a bunch of prototypes ready to be put into production, but the factory that had those prototypes caught on fire and destroyed all of the prototypes except for Oldsmobile's first ever car. In 1903 and 1904, Oldsmobile was the best-selling car company. However, in 1904, Ransom E. Olds left the company due to arguments and disputes with Frederick Smith, his sales manager. Frederick was questioning if Oldsmobile cars had no defects when they were fully produced. This caused Olds to create an experimental engineering shop without Frederick knowing, which would soon go on to create the REO Motor Car Company
. Throughout the early to the late 1900s, Oldsmobile produced the first mass-produced car, the Oldsmobile Model R "Curved Dash" on the first ever assembly line, which is incorrectly credited to Henry Ford. The cars were colloquially referred to as "Oldsmobiles", popularizing the lyrics of the 1905 hit song "In My Merry Oldsmobile". It was eventually bought out by General Motors in 1908. Platforms that were shared with Buick had a "Series" prefix, while pre-GM vehicles had a "Model" prefix.
1910s to 1940s 
In 1910 (1910s), Oldsmobile produced the Limited Touring Series 23, which had a new body designed by Fisher Body, was considered to be the start of Oldsmobile's innovations throughout the years. Costing US$4,600 at release with an 11.6 Liter engine producing 70 hp, it was considered to be technologically advanced. A Limousine version was introduced the same year, costing US$5,800 at the time. It sold only 275 units but is remembered for winning a race against the 20th Century Limited Train. Oldsmobile then released the Oldsmobile Series 40 and Oldsmobile Light Eight in 1912 and 1916, which had a Cadillac Flathead V8 until 1923 and division-exclusive OHV Straight 6 engine until 1930. In the 1920s, the Oldsmobile Six was released in five body styles using the new "GM B platform". The "Viking" automobile was introduced, but discontinued in 1930 (An additional 353 cars were sold as 1931 models).
Oldsmobile in the 50s was centered on the Rocket engine and the Space Race. During this time, Oldsmobile cars with the Rocket V8 were considered to be the fastest and were redesigned with a wide "open maw" grille. Oldsmobile changed its logo to reflect its "universal appeal" from its customers while changing the grille again in 1958 to reflect the Rocket image. Oldsmobile, along with Buick and Cadillac, were the first to have a hardtop (Cadillac's was the Coupe DeVille, while Buick's was the Riviera) and a wrap-around windshield. Trim models were also introduced in the 1950s that connected with base models. Examples include the Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 and Oldsmobile Super 88. However, the introduction of the "Forward Look" design by Chrysler along with cars by DeSoto and Mercury made Oldsmobile outdated. This made General Motors design the "StratoRoof", which had negative reception from customers and owners alike
. 1958 had a decline in sales while also introducing a major facelift for Oldsmobile, especially the 88. Oldsmobile models had another major redesign a year later in 1959 for the exterior and interior. Oldsmobile's peak was in the 1960s, being one of the most innovative companies in automotive industry, such as the first Turbocharger and Water Injection (Oldsmobile Jetfire) and first Front-Wheel-Drive car in the United States since the 1929 Cord Phaeton (Oldsmobile Toronado). It also included Oldsmobile's most known models (Oldsmobile 442, Oldsmobile Cutlass, Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, and more).
1990s to 2000s (2004) 
However, Oldsmobile started to decline in the 90s and the 2000s, going from 1 million sales to approximately 40% of its record sales in 1985 (Approximately 1.1 million sales), new competitors such as Acura and Lexus, along with discontinuing its most iconic models (e.g. Cutlass, Cutlass Supreme, 88, 98, and more). Oldsmobile also received a new logo during this time, replacing the iconic Rocket logo. In the mid 90s, Oldsmobile introduced the Oldsmobile Aurora, which would have its models designed derived from the Aurora. In the 2000s, General Motors announced that it would shut down the Oldsmobile brand, while also announcing one of its last models, the Oldsmobile Bravada. Oldsmobile's last cars had the "Final 500" emblems/markings. Then, on April 29, 2004, Oldsmobile filed for bankruptcy with its last model being an Oldsmobile Alero GLS sedan, which was sold for $42,000 at an auction in New York City.
Models
 Aurora
 Oldsmobile Bravada
 Custom Cruiser
 Cutlass
 Delta 88
 Intrigue
 Oldsmobile Silhouette
 Toronado

Gallery 

General Motors
1897 establishments in the United States
2004 disestablishments
1897 establishments
1920s automobiles
1930s automobiles
1940s automobiles
1950s automobiles
1960s automobiles
1970s automobiles
1980s automobiles
1990s automobiles
19th-century establishments in Michigan
2000s automobiles
Automobile brands
Companies based in Michigan
Defunct companies of the United States
GMC is an automobile maker, owned by General Motors. GMC is known for building trucks. Some of them are small, while others, like those promoted as "Professional Grade", are big. In the past, GMC was part of the General Motors Diesel Division which also made buses, motorhomes, and vehicles for the military.

The company was founded by Max Grabowsky in 1901. It was bought by General Motors in 1909. In 1989 GMC started to market the Suzuki Sidekick as the GMC Tracker in Canada. In 2006 GMC announced it would start selling unibody crossovers, its first was the GMC Acadia, replacing the Safari minivan, GMC Envoy XL SUV and the Pontiac Montana SV6 minivan.

1901 establishments in the United States
General Motors
Saturn was an automobile maker. It was owned by General Motors. It was established on January 7, 1985.  Saturns are sold in the United States and Canada, some even being sold in Japan.  They are currently known for European styling, and no-haggle pricing. IN the past, their most notable feature was plastic body panels.

General Motors tried to sell the company. Penske Automtive was going to buy it, but decided not to. Saturn Corporation went defunct on October 31, 2010 as part of General Motors downsizing due to its bankruptcy. The company was succeeded by Buick as GM's captive import brand. GM also decided to reuse some components of the brand's crossover for Chevrolet and GMC models.

Models

Current
Aura
Astra
Outlook
Vue
Sky

Discontinued
Ion
L-Series
Relay
S-Series

References

Other websites 
Saturn official website
Saturn Owner's Fanclub 

General Motors
Defunct companies of the United States
1985 establishments in the United States
2010 disestablishments in the United States
Holden was an Australian car maker, owned by General Motors. Holden was known for making rear-wheel drive cars with large, naturally-aspirated engines. The company closed down in 2020.

Vehicles

Former

Original models
Holden Monaro
Holden Camira
Holden Torana
Holden Kingswood
Holden Brougham
Holden Special
Holden Commodore (1978-2018)
Holden Caprice
Holden Sandman

Toyota-based models
Holden Apollo (1989–1996)
Holden Nova (1989–1996)

Opel-based models
Holden Vectra (1997–2006)
Holden Zafira (2001–2005)
Holden Combo (1996–2012)
Holden Calibra (1991–1998)
Holden Insignia (2015–2017)
Holden Cascada (2015–2017)
Holden Tigra (2005–2007)
Holden Barina (1994–2005)
Holden Astra (1996–2009, 2015–2020)
Opel Astra (2012-2013)
Holden Commodore (2018–2020)
Chevrolet-based models
Holden Cruze (2009–2016)
Holden Malibu (2013–2016)
Holden Suburban (1998–2001)
Holden Volt (2012–2015)
Holden Barina (2011–2018)
Holden Trax (2013-2020)
Holden Trailblazer (2015-2020)
Holden Equinox (2018-2020)
Holden Colorado (2008-2020)
Holden Spark (2009-2020)

GMC-based models
Holden Acadia (2018-2020)

Daewoo-based models
Holden Epica (2007–2011)
Holden Viva (2005–2009)
Holden Captiva (2006–2018)

Isuzu-based models 
Holden Jackaroo (1981–2004)
Holden Rodeo (1981–2008)
Holden Monterey 
Holden Frontera (1995–2004)
Holden Gemini
Holden Piazza
Holden Shuttle

Suzuki-based models
Holden Drover
Holden Scurry
Holden Cruze (2002–2006)
Holden Barina (1985–1994)

Other websites 
Holden Australia 
Holden New Zealand
Holden Special Vehicles

Companies of Australia
 
Defunct companies
Hummer is a type of Sport utility vehicle.  Hummer was first made by AM General who also made vehicles used by the United States Army. The design of the Hummer H1 is based on the military High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV – Humvee).

Hummer used to be made by General Motors.  General Motors wanted to sell the brand, but they could not find a buyer, so the brand will stop being made.

Models 
 H1, the first Hummer, based on the Humvee
 H2
 H3

Other websites 

 AM General official site
 GM's HUMMER homepage

General Motors vehicles
Sport utility vehicles
Vauxhall is a car manufacturer. The company was founded in London in 1903 and was named after the area of the city where it was created. The company is based in Luton, Bedfordshire. They have 2 factories, 1 in Luton for production of the Vivaro van and 1 in Ellsmere Port for production of the Astra family car. In March 2017, Vauxhall and parent brand Opel were brought by PSA, the company who owns Peugeot and Citroen.

Other websites 
 Vauxhall Heritage 
 Vauxhall UK Website 

Opel automobiles
General Motors
British automobile companies
The Battle of Dunkirk (French: Bataille de Dunkerque) (Also known as Operation Dynamo) was a major battle during World War II. It lasted from the 26 May until 4 June 1940. The Allied forces were split in two by a German armoured advance to the Channel coast at Calais. The British and French commanders had been taken by surprise at the speed of the advance. The northern part of the army was surrounded In Dunkirk, France, a port on the English Channel. There they made a perimeter and waited for an evacuation.  

The majority of British troops were able to escape. Approximately half as many French troops also escaped. About 40,000 troops, mostly French, had to stay behind to keep the Germans away during the evacuation. Many of the evacuated French troops landed elsewhere and continued the Battle of France.

References

Other websites 
 WW2DB: Invasion of ''France and the Low Countries

1940 in France
Dunkirk
Dunkirk
Dunkirk
Dunkirk
Dunkirk
Dunkirk
May 1940 events
June 1940 events
The 1971 Bangladesh atrocities refer to the murder of many people in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) by the Pakistan National Army (PNA) during the Bangladesh Liberation War that began on March 26, 1971 with Operation Searchlight.

History

In 1947, the United Kingdom split British India into two countries: India and Pakistan.  The idea was that Hindus would live in India and Muslims would live in Pakistan.  But it was not so simple.  Because Hindus and Muslims lived in so many different places, East Pakistan and West Pakistan were about 1000 miles apart, with all of India in between them.  Also, not all Muslims are the same.  The East Pakistanis and West Pakistanis did not speak the same language and did not always like each other.
There were fewer West Pakistanis than East Pakistanis, but West Pakistanis controlled most of the government. After the Bhola Cyclone damaged East Pakistan, West Pakistan did not send enough help.  Because of these things, East Pakistanis started to want to be a separate country from West Pakistan.  The government in West Pakistan started Operation Searchlight to stop this separatist movement.

East Pakistan would later become Bangladesh.  The people who lived there called themselves Bengalis. Some of the Bengalis were not Muslims but Hindus.

In 1970, Pakistan held its first general election.  Before this, the military had limited voters' rights.  The West Pakistanis voted for many different political parties, but most of the East Pakistanis voted for the same political party, called the Awami League.  This meant the East Pakistani candidates would have a majority in Pakistan's assembly.  This East Pakistani political party was led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
General Yahya Khan, a West Pakistani and leader, did not want the East Pakistani candidates to run the country, so he declared martial law, meaning the army was in charge of the country.  The East Pakistanis were angry.  They did protests and riots in 1970 and 1971.

Khan and Mujibur met with each other to talk to try to solve the problems and stop the riots.  It looked like they had made an agreement.  But on March 25, 1971, Mujibur was arrested.  Then, thousands of West Pakistani soldiers, 60,000 to 80,000 of them, began killing East Pakistanis. Bangladesh declared itself an independent country the next day.
West Pakistani soldiers killed Hindus, Bengali Muslims, smart people, students and politicians in order to kill them all. They went to schools and killed everybody there. The soldiers killed college professors at Dhaka University and other intellectual leaders because they thought they were the ones encouraging other East Pakistanis to want to be a separate country.  They especially killed Hindu leaders.  Then they killed young Hindu men because they thought young Hindu men would want to fight against them. A TIME magazine article said "The Hindus are three-fourths of the refugees and most of the dead, have most disliked by the Muslim soldiers."

More than 200,000 women were raped.  Some of the women were raped in front of husbands or male relatives.  Other women were captured to be slaves for the West Bengali soldiers.
Two Muslims called Al-Shams and Al-Badr were told by the Pakistanis to kill Bengali Hindus and traitory Bengali Muslims also. There are many graves with a lot of people in Bangladesh, and new graves with a lot of people are always being discovered.

A bad set of killings took place during Operation Searchlight, a series of killings which began on March 25, 1971 and ended on December 16, 1971 and led to death of 3 million Bengalis in East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh), and other things like rape and looting. Originally, the Pakistanis wanted to take over the big cities in Bangladesh and control everybody in one month. They did not expect that the Bengalis would fight back, which they did. Pakistanis got very angry and started to kill all the Bengalis.
Eventually, the Bengali freedom fighters under the Mukti Bahini would seek help from India to win against the Pakistanis. India sent its army in and fought the Pakistanis with the Bengalis until Pakistan was totally defeated and went away from Bangladesh on December 16, 1971.

Number of people killed
People disagree about how many people died.  According to the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, it could have been as few as 500,000 or as many as 3 million. It was during the Cold War and so different groups said more or fewer people had died depending on their own political ideas and goals. The Soviets, who supported Bangladesh, said that it was 3 million. The CIA said it was 200,000. Pakistan was then an ally of the United States, and the West Pakistani soldiers used weapons given by the Americans. India, which was also pro-Soviet, and Bangladesh state that nearly 3 million had been killed.
In 1997, R. J. Rummel wrote the book Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. In Chapter 8, Statistics Of Pakistan's Democide - Estimates, Calculations, And Sources, he noted:
In East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) [General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and his top generals] also planned to murder its Bengali intellectual, cultural, and political elite. They also planned to indiscriminately murder hundreds of thousands of its Hindus and drive the rest into India. And they planned to destroy its economic base to insure that it would be subordinate to West Pakistan for at least a generation to come. This despicable and cut throat plan was outright genocide.

Rummel called it an act of killing specific groups of people: "Consolidating both ranges, I give a final estimate of Pakistan's democide to be 300,000 to 3,000,000, or a prudent 1,500,000."
Legacy
Not everyone agrees that the atrocities were a genocide, as nationalist Bangladeshis call it. Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan say that is "Bengali Lies." Bangladeshi authorities and some independent organizations say that one to three million people were killed. Another 10 million ran away from the country to be safe in the Indian province of West Bengal.

Trials
No people involved in the genocide were put on trial until 2011. Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunals convicted 26 people for genocide and crimes against humanity. Some were executed, but international organizations stated that the accused had not been tried fairly.

References

Other websites
1971 War - Myths and Realities- The Free Library
Behind the Myth of 3 million February, 1996 (Dr. M. Abdul Mu’min Chowdhury)

1971 in Bangladesh
Bangladesh

Bangladesh Liberation War
Murder in the 1970s
War crimes
Iwao Takamoto (29 April 1925 - 8 January 2007) was a Japanese-American animator, television producer, and film director. He was a production designer for Hanna-Barbera Productions and the artist/character designer of Scooby-Doo.

Biography 
Iwao Takamoto's father moved from Hiroshima to the United States for his health. He only went back to Japan once, and that was to marry his wife. Iwao Takamoto was born on April 19 1925 in Los Angeles, California. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Iwao Takamoto's family, like many Japanese-Americans, had to move to an internment camp. They spent the rest of World War II in the Manzanar internment camp. While he was there, Iwao Takamoto received basic illustration training from other people in the camp.
Iwao Takamoto first started doing cartoons professionally after the end of the war. He was hired as an assistant animator by Walt Disney Studios in 1947. Iwao Takamoto eventually became an assistant animator for the legendary Milt Kahl. He worked as an animator on such titles as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and Lady and the Tramp.

Takamoto left Disney in 1961 and joined Hanna-Barbera shortly afterwards. He did many jobs there, but is probably best known as a character designer. He was responsible for the original character designs of such characters as Scooby-Doo, The Jetsons' dog Astro, and Penelope Pitstop. He worked as a producer at Hanna-Barbera, supervising shows such as The Addams Family, Hong Kong Phooey, and Jabberjaw. He directed several feature-length animated films, including Charlotte's Web (1973) and Jetsons: The Movie (1990). The inspiration for Scooby-Doo's creation as a Great Dane came from an employee of the Hanna-Barbera company who bred this dog.
Takamoto was Vice-President of Creative Design at Hanna-Barbera, and was responsible for overseeing Hanna-Barbera's product-related merchandising. In 2005, he received the Golden Award from the Animation Guild, to honor his more than 50 years of service in the animation field.

He died on January 8, 2007 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from heart failure at age 81.

References

Other websites 
 

1925 births
2007 deaths
American animators
Deaths from heart failure
People from Los Angeles
Mussels are several families of bivalve molluscs. Mussels live in lakes, rivers, and creeks. They sometimes also live in intertidal areas along coastlines worldwide.  The freshwater mussels (several allied families, the largest being the Unionidae) and saltwater mussels (family Mytilidae) are not closely related, despite the fact that they may look similar. They are grouped in different subclasses.  The freshwater Zebra mussels and their relatives (family Dreissenidae) live attached to rocks in a manner similar to marine mussels, but are classified with the Heterodonta, the taxonomic group including most bivalves referred to as "clams".

From archeology, it is known that humans have been eating mussels for thousands of years. They can be cooked or eaten raw. Care must be taken however as mussels quickly become poisonous after they die.
Other websites 
 Freshwater Mussel Genera 
 Methods of mussel farming 
 Photo of bouchot pilings for growing mussels 
 Gilbertson, Lance. (1999). Zoology Laboratory Manual (4th ed.), pp. 11.1-11.4. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
 Mississippi River Mussels 
 Marine Ecology Station 

Bivalves
Seafood
Gastropods, or univalves, are the largest and most successful class of molluscs. 60,000–75,000 known living species belong to it. Most of are marine, but many live in freshwater or on land. Their fossil record goes back to the later Cambrian.

Slugs and snails, abalones, limpets, cowries, conches, top shells, whelks, and sea slugs are all gastropods. 
The gastropods are in origin sea-floor predators, though they did evolve into many other habitats. 

Many lines living today evolved in the Mesozoic era, taking advantage of the huge supply of food on the sea floor's continental shelves.

General description 
Snails have torsion, a process where the body coils to one side during development. The significance of this procedure is not yet clear.

They have a well-defined head with two or four sensory tentacles. They also have a head-foot, which it moves on. The eyes at the tip of the tentacles range from simple to more complex eyes.
Gastropods from several different families are called sea slugs. They are often flamboyantly coloured. This may be either as a warning if they are poisonous or to camouflage them on the corals and seaweeds where many of them live. Their gills are often feathery plumes on their backs. This is what gives the name to the nudibranchs. Nudibranchs with smooth or warty backs have no visible gill mechanisms and respiration may take place directly through the skin. A few of the sea slugs are herbivores and some are carnivores. Many have distinct dietary preferences and regularly occur in association with certain species.

Classification 
The taxonomy of the Gastropoda is under constant revision: two major revisions have been published in the last twenty years. There will certainly be other revisions using the data from DNA sequencing. At present, the taxonomy of the Gastropoda may differ from author to author.
According to modern cladism, the taxonomy of the Gastropoda should be written in terms of strictly monophyletic groups. That means only one lineage of gastropods in each group. It will be difficult to do this, and still have a practical taxonomy for working biologists. Classifying animals in practice means using morphology (what they look like). But there are differences between the older groupings got from morphology, and those based on genome sequences. Convergent evolution, which has occurred often in gastropods, may account for this.

This was the traditional classification into four subclasses:
 Prosobranchia: (gills in front of the heart).
 Opisthobranchia: (gills to the right and behind the heart).
 Gymnomorpha: (no shell)
 Pulmonata: (with lungs instead of gills)

Geological history
Geological history

The first gastropods were exclusively marine. The first of the group appeared in the Upper Cambrian (Chippewaella, Strepsodiscus). By the Ordovician period the gastropods were a varied group present in a few aquatic habitats. Commonly, fossil gastropods from the rocks of the early Palaeozoic era are too poorly preserved for accurate identification. Still, the Silurian genus Poleumita contains fifteen identified species. Fossil gastropods are less common during the Palaeozoic era than bivalves.
Most of the gastropods of that era belong to primitive groups. A few of these groups still survive today. By the Carboniferous period many of the shapes seen in living gastropods can be matched in the fossil record. Despite these similarities in appearance, the majority of these older forms are not directly related to living forms. It was during the Mesozoic era that the ancestors of many of the living gastropods evolved. One of the earliest known terrestrial (land-dwelling) gastropods is Maturipupa which is found in the Coal measures of the Carboniferous period in Europe. In the case of the common fossil Bellerophon, from Carboniferous limestones in Europe, it is not known whether it is a gastropod or not.

Relatives of the modern land snails are rare before the Cretaceous period. The familiar Helix first appeared in that period.
In rocks of the Mesozoic era gastropods are more common as fossils and their shell is often well preserved. Their fossils occur in beds of both freshwater and marine environments. The Purbeck Marble of the Jurassic period and the Sussex Marble of the early Cretaceous, which both occur in southern England, are limestones containing the tightly packed remains of the pond snail Viviparus.

Rocks of the Cainozoic era have very large numbers of gastropod fossils in them. Many of these fossils are closely related to modern living forms. The diversity of the gastropods increased markedly at the beginning of this era, along with that of the bivalves.

Gastropods are one of the groups that record the changes in fauna caused by the advance and retreat of the ice sheets during the Pleistocene epoch.

Gastropod pages 
These pages show the variety of gastropod forms:
abalone; 
conch; 
cowry; 
limpet; 
nudibranch; 
sea slug; 
slug; 
snail; 
whelk.

References

Other websites
Other websites 

Conchology.be consult over 2,100,000 figured gastropods and other shells
Taxonomy
Gastropod Classification compiled by Paul Jeffery
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature 4th edition, 2000 
Gastropods in captivity 
Reconstructions of fossil gastropods at www.emilydamstra.com
The name Limpet is used for many marine and freshwater gastropod species which have a simple conical shell. The phrase "true limpets" is used only for marine limpets in the ancient clade Patellogastropoda. This article is mainly about the true limpets.

True limpets are small marine gastropod molluscs with flattened, cone-shaped shells. They live throughout the intertidal zone, attached to rocks or other hard ground. They attach themselves using mucus and a muscular "foot", which seals them against the rock and protects them from desiccation during low tide, and from high-energy waves action.

Limpets eat by grazing on algae found on rock surfaces. They scrape films of algae from the rock with a radula, a ribbon-like tongue with rows of teeth. Limpets move by rippling the muscles of their foot in a wave-like motion. Most limpets are less than 3in (8cm) long, but a West Mexican Limpet grows to be 8in (20 cm).
Some key-hole limpets have a hole at the top, through which gas exchange can occur (they are not true limpets).

Fossil record & taxonomy 
There are many limpets in the Paleozoic fossil record, from the lower Cambrian, but none can be placed with certainty in the Patellogastropoda. Some might be Monoplacophorans, which is a separate mollusc class with a similar life-style. The earliest patellogastropod verified by shell microstructure is from the Triassic of Italy, but it is in the Upper Cretaceous and Cainozoic periods that many of the living forms make their first appearance.

Patellogastropods (roughly = order) 
Patelloidea (~superfamily)
Nacelloidea
Lottoidea
Neolepetopsoidea

Life style 
The life-style of limpets is sessile: they stick fast to rocks or other hard substrates.
Homing behaviour 
Some species of limpets return to the same spot on the rock known as a "home scar" just before the tide ebbs. It is thought that they follow chemical trails. In such species, the shape of their shell often grows to precisely match the contours of the rock surrounding the scar. This behaviour permits a better seal to the rock. It is thought that they follow a mucus trail left as they move.

Where the limpets eat the algae, off bare rocks, it causes places where other organisms can grow and thrive. Some species, such as Lottia gigantea "garden" a patch of algae around their home scar. They push other organisms out of this patch by ramming with their shell, allowing their patch of algae to grow for their own grazing.
Predators and threats 
Limpets are prey for starfish, shore-birds, fish, seals, and humans. They have a two main defences; fleeing (letting go in the water) or clamping their shells against the surface they are on. The defence response can be adjusted to the type of predator, which can often be detected chemically by the limpet.

Limpets can be long lived, with tagged specimens surviving for more than 10 years. If the limpet lives on bare rock, it grows at a slower rate but can live for up to 20 years.

Limpets found on sheltered shores (limpets that are less frequently in contact with wave action, and thus less frequently in contact with water) have a greater risk of desiccation because of the effects of sunlight, water evaporation and the wind.  To avoid drying out they will clamp to the rock they inhabit, minimizing water-loss from the rim around their base. As this occurs chemicals are released that promote the vertical growth of the shell.
Reproduction 
Limpets are hermaphrodites (producing both male and female reproductive cells) and undergo sex change during life. They become male at about 9 months, but after a couple of years they change sex to become female. Spawning occurs once a year, usually during winter, and is triggered by rough seas which disperse the eggs and sperm. Larvae are pelagic for a couple of weeks before settling onto a hard substrate.

References

Lottia gigantea: taxonomy, facts, life cycle, bibliography 

Gastropods
Abalone (from Spanish Abulón) are shellfish, a genus of gastropods.

Abalone are known by their colorful "pearlescent" inside shell. This is also called ear-shell, ormer in Guernsey, abalone in South Africa, and pāua in New Zealand.

The meat of this shellfish is considered to be a delicacy in some parts of Latin America (especially Chile), South East Asia, and East Asia (especially in China, Japan, and Korea).

Description 
Abalones live all over the world. They can be seen along the waters of every continent, except the Atlantic coast of South America, the Caribbean, and the East Coast of the United States. Most abalones are found in cold waters, along the coasts of New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, and Western North America and Japan in the Northern Hemisphere. On the Chilean Pacific coast, the species called loco ("Concholepas concholepas") has a hard, black shell and is eaten by many people.
Abalone have unique features: the shell is round, with two to three spirals. The last spiral is grown into a large "ear"-like shape, which explains the name 'ear-shell'. The inside of the shell is shiny, from silvery white to green-red mother-of-pearl.

Abalones can start to give birth at a small size. Their fertility is high and increases with size (from 10,000 to 11 million eggs at a time).

Young abalones, called larvae, feed on plankton. The adults eat plants and feed on algae. They like to eat red algae. Their size can be as small as 20mm to as big as 200mm.

Abalone shell 
The shell of the abalone is known for being very strong. It is made of very tiny calcium carbonate tiles stacked like bricks. Between the layers of tiles is a sticky protein substance. Allergic skin reactions and asthma attacks can happen when breathing the dust made when these tiles are broken down.

The colorful inside part of the abalone shell can be used for decorative inlays, in guitars, for example.

Abalone trade

California
California 

Sport harvesting of red abalone is allowed with a California fishing license and an abalone stamp card. Abalone may only be taken using breath-hold techniques: freediving or shore picking. SCUBA diving for abalone is strictly not allowed. Abalone harvesting is not allowed south of the mouth of the San Francisco Bay. There is a size minimum of seven inches measured across the shell and a limit of three per day and 24 per year that can be taken. Abalone may only be taken in April, May, June, August, September, October, and November, but they may not be taken in July, December, January, February, or March. Transportation of abalone is only legal while the abalone is still attached to the shell. The sale of sport-caught abalone is illegal, including the shell. Only red abalone may be taken; black, white, pink, and flat abalone are protected by law.
Abalone divers normally wear a thick wetsuit, including a hood, booties, and gloves. They also wear a mask, snorkel, weight belt, abalone iron, and abalone gauge. It is common to take abalone in the water a few inches up to 10 m/28' deep. Fewer freedivers can work deeper than that.   Abalone is usually found on rocks near food sources (kelp). An abalone iron is used to pry the abalone from the stone before it can fully clamp down. Visibility usually is five to ten feet. Divers commonly dive out of boats, kayaks, tube floats, or directly off the shore. An eight-inch abalone is considered a good catch, a nine-inch would be very good, and a ten-inch plus (250mm) abalone would be an excellent catch. Rock- or shore-picking is different from diving, where the rock picker feels below rocks during low tides for abalone.
Black market 
There is a worldwide black market in abalone meat collection and export. In New Zealand, where abalone is called pāua in the Māori language, this can be a particular problem. The right to harvest pāua can be granted legally under Māori customary rights. When such permits are overused, it is difficult to police. The legal daily limit is ten pāua per diver with a minimum shell length of 125 mm. Many Ministry of Fisheries officers strictly enforce the limit with the help of the police. Pāua' poaching' is a major industry in New Zealand, with many thousands of abalones being stolen, mostly undersized. Convictions have caused the removal of diving gear, boats, and motor vehicles, fines, and, in rare cases, imprisonment. The Ministry of Fisheries expects in the year 2004/05, nearly 1000 tons of pāua will be poached, with 75% of that being undersized.
Highly polished New Zealand pāua shells are extremely popular as gifts with their striking blue, green and purple iridescence. Transporting unprocessed abalone shells out of New Zealand is illegal.

South Africa 
The largest abalone in South Africa, "Haliotis midae," can be found along about two-thirds of the country's coastline. Abalone-diving has been a recreational activity for many years, but stocks are currently being threatened by illegal commercial harvesting.
Channel Islands, Europe 
Ormers ("Haliotis tuberculata") are considered a delicacy in the Channel Islands and are looked after with great eagerness by the locals. Unfortunately, this has led to a huge decrease in numbers since the second half of the 19th century, and 'ormering' is now strictly regulated to keep stocks. The taking of ormers is now restricted to many 'ormering tides,' from January 1 to April 30, which happen on the full or new moon two days after. No ormers may be taken from the beach under 8 cm in shell length. Gatherers are not allowed to wear wetsuits or even put their heads underwater. Any breach of these laws is illegal and can lead to a large fine. The demand for ormers is so big that it started the world's first underwater arrest when Mr. Kempthorne-Leigh of Guernsey was arrested by a police officer in full diving gear while illegally diving for ormers.

White Abalone is going extinct because of its delicious tender meat, jewelry, and beautiful shell.

Farming
Farming 

There have been a number of attempts to artificially grow (farm) abalone for the purpose of consumption.

Notes

Other websites 

California Red Abalone 
 Specimen shells; many pictures. 
 Imagemap of worldwide abalone distribution 

Gastropods
Seafood
Shellfish is a culinary term for some aquatic invertebrates used as food: molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. It is not a scientific term, and its use may vary from place to place.

Both saltwater and freshwater invertebrates are considered shellfish. Molluscs commonly used as food include the clam, mussel, oyster, winkle, and scallop.

Some crustaceans commonly eaten are the shrimp, prawn, lobster, crayfish, and crab.

Echinoderms are not eaten as commonly as molluscs and crustaceans. In Asia, sea cucumber and sea urchins are eaten.

Edible cephalopods such as squid, octopus, and cuttlefish and terrestrial snails, though all molluscs, are sometimes considered to be shellfish and sometimes not.

The term finfish is sometimes used to distinguish ordinary (vertebrate) fish from shellfish.

Jewish and Islamic dietary laws forbid the eating of shellfish (those that live on the land, and in the water).
In Japanese cuisine, chefs often use shellfish and their roe. Sushi and sashimi feature both raw and cooked shellfish.

Related pages
Seafood

References

Other websites 

Shellfish News 
Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory  at Rutgers University
Shellfish Gallery  from the Shellfish Association of Great Britain
Shellfish Facts 
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections -- Freshwater and Marine Image Bank -- Shellfish An ongoing digital collection of images related to shellfish.

Seafood
Alban Berg (born Vienna, 9 February 1885; died Vienna 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer. Alban Berg and Anton Webern were both pupils of Arnold Schoenberg. All three composers in their own way changed the style of musical composition in the early 20th century. They grew up at a time when most composers were still writing Romantic music, but Schoenberg and his pupils started to write atonal music (music which is not in any key) and then twelve-tone music in which all 12 notes in an octave are of the same importance. Although Berg wrote a lot of twelve-tone music he still managed to make it sound quite Romantic at times, more so than Schoenberg or Webern. His most important works are his two operas Wozzeck and Lulu and his Violin Concerto.

Life
Life

Early years 
Berg was brought up in the centre of Vienna. His family had plenty of money, but when Berg’s father died in 1900 life became much harder for them. He did not do very well at school. He also had a love affair with a kitchenmaid, with whom he had a daughter.

He was interested in music, played the piano and had started to compose, but he had not done well enough in his school exams to get into the music conservatory. He was not interested in business like his father had been. He got an unpaid job. Then, in 1904, he started to study with Schoenberg. This was the first time he had been given proper music lessons. Two years later, his mother inherited some money, and Berg was then able to give up his unpaid job and concentrate on music.
Schoenberg taught him harmony, counterpoint and music theory, all the things one needs to know to compose well. Berg had lessons from him from 1904 until 1911. His first proper pieces include a Piano Sonata and a String quartet. Here he had already found the modern style which suited him. He wrote harmonies which seemed to float. He often wrote pieces with several movements which are all linked by a common theme. He also liked themes which are heard upside down, or palindromes, where the tune sounds the same forwards as backwards. He met a girl called Helene and they married in 1910.

Adulthood 

Berg liked to listen to all kinds of music. In this way he was different to Schoenberg or Webern. Berg was interested in French composers such as Debussy, as well as jazz. He liked the modern theatre and the political works of the playwright Bertolt Brecht and the composer Kurt Weill.
Berg wrote Five Orchestral Pieces. It is one of the first important works he wrote without Schoenberg’s help. The music has some modern chords which must have sounded very shocking to the Viennese audience. On 31 March 1913 Schoenberg conducted a concert in Vienna which included some songs by Berg. People in the audience started to fight and the police had to be called. When Schoenberg wrote to Berg criticising his music, Berg lost all his self-confidence. Slowly he started to get more confidence again. He wrote Three Orchestral Pieces op 6. The music sounds quite like Mahler. There are a lot of musical ideas which grow into one another and make a rich sound.
During World War I Berg spent some time in an army training camp. This experience must have been in his mind when he wrote his opera Wozzeck. This opera became very famous. There were a lot of new ideas in it. It is not about a great hero, but about a simple man who is mistreated by people. The music, too, is very different from opera music up to that time. Although it was so modern it was a great success and made Berg world-famous. It gave him more money which, together with a little teaching, allowed him to spend most of his time composing.

Years of fame
Years of fame 

Wozzeck has a little twelve tone music in it, but in his next works the twelve tone system is much more important. He wrote Lyrical Suite for String Quartet and a Kammerkonzert (Chamber Concerto) in which the form is made up by mathematical rules. He liked to hide things in his music e.g. favourite numbers or letters from people’s names. These are like secret codes and, in later years, musicians have spent a lot of time trying to work out what Berg was trying to do.
In 1928 Berg started work on his second and last opera: Lulu. He had thought about the opera for many years. He had seen a play called Die Büchse des Pandora (Pandora’s Box) in 1905. Wedekind had played the part of Jack the Ripper. People thought the play was obscene, but it still became very popular, especially after 1918 when there was no more censorship in Germany. He worked on the opera until 1934. He then stopped work on it to write his Violin Concerto. When he heard about the sad death from poliomyelitis of a young girl he knew called Manon Gropius, he dedicated the concerto to her memory. He wrote: “To the memory of an angel”. Manon’s mother, Alma, had been the wife of Gustav Mahler.

Death
Death 

Soon after he had finished the Violin Concerto, Berg was stung by an insect. This formed an abscess and he was rushed to hospital but he died. The concerto had not yet been performed. He had not finished Lulu. The third act was only sketched in short score (showing the main notes, but not exactly what each instrument plays). When the opera was first performed, Act III was just acted out in mime while some other music by Berg was played. Berg’s widow Helene did not want anyone else to finish the opera, so Act III was never performed until after Helene died in 1976. It was finished by Friedrich Cerha and performed in 1977, although a court action had tried to stop it from being performed.

Most important works 
 Kammerkonzert (1925) for piano, violin and 13 wind instruments
 Wozzeck
 Lulu
 Lyric Suite
 Seven Early Songs
 Violin Concerto

1885 births
1935 deaths
20th-century composers
Austrian composers
Writers from Vienna