page_title: Chiton
section_title: Life habits
hierarchical_section_title: Chiton / Life habits
context_page_description: Chitons are marine molluscs of varying size in the class Polyplacophora, formerly known as Amphineura. About 940 extant and 430 fossil species are recognized.
  They are also sometimes known as sea cradles or "coat-of-mail shells", or more formally as loricates, polyplacophorans, and occasionally as polyplacophores.
  Chitons have a shell composed of eight separate shell plates or valves. These plates overlap slightly at the front and back edges, and yet articulate well with one another. Because of this, the shell provides protection at the same time as permitting the chiton to flex upward when needed for locomotion over uneven surfaces, and even allows the animal to curl up into a ball when dislodged from rocks. The shell plates are encircled by a skirt known as a girdle.
context_section_description: A chiton creeps along slowly on a muscular foot. It has considerable power of adhesion and can cling to rocks very powerfully, like a limpet.
  Chitons are generally herbivorous grazers, though some are omnivorous and some carnivorous. They eat algae, bryozoans, diatoms, barnacles, and sometimes bacteria by scraping the rocky substrate with their well-developed radulae.
  A few species of chitons are predatory, such as the small western Pacific species Placiphorella velata. These predatory chitons have enlarged anterior girdles. They catch other small invertebrates, such as shrimp and possibly even small fish, by holding the enlarged, hood-like front end of the girdle up off the surface, and then clamping down on unsuspecting, shelter-seeking prey.
caption: Cryptoconchus porosus, a butterfly chiton, which has its valves completely covered by the girdle
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