Chitons are the familiar group of organisms that have eight valves on their shells.

A
visit to any rocky intertidal habitat around the world will introduce one to these
beautiful molluscs.
Chitons are generally dioecious (have separate males and females), with sperm
released by males into the water. In most chitons, fertilized eggs are shed singly or
in gelatinous strings, and once fertilized in the water column, these develop into a
trochophore larva (free-swimming and ciliated) that soon elongates and then
directly develops into a juvenile chiton; there is no veliger stage (having a velum, a
lobed, ciliate swimming organ). In brooding species, the eggs remain in the pallial
cavity of the female where they are fertilized by sperm moving through with the
respiratory currents. Upon hatching from the brooded eggs, the offspring may
remain in the pallial cavity until they crawl away as young chitons or exit the pallial
cavity as trochophores for a short pelagic phase before settling.
Chitons are flattened, elongately-oval, with eight overlapping dorsal shell plates or
valves, bordered by a thick girdle formed from the mantle that may be covered with
spines, scales, or hairs. The pallial cavity, containing multiple pairs of small gills,
surrounds the foot with which the animal typically clings to hard surfaces. The
plates are greatly reduced or even internal in a few species, these species
sometimes having an elongate, somewhat worm-like body. Most are small (0.5-5 cm,
but one species reaches over 30 cm in length).
Chitons possess a heart and an open blood system, a pair of kidneys that open to
the pallial cavity, a simple nervous system with two pairs of lateral nerve cords, and
many special minute sensory organs (aesthetes) that pass through the shell valves.
Some of these are specialized as light receptors, having a minute lens and retinalike structure. The mouth is surrounded by a simple velum and the head lacks
tentacles or eyes. They feed on encrusting organisms such as sponges and
bryozoans, and non-selectively on diatoms and algae that are scraped from the
substrate with their radula, which is hardened by the incorporation of metallic ions.
One group captures small crustaceans by trapping them under the anterior part of
their body.
Paul Bunje, 2003
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/taxa/inverts/mollusca/polyplacophora.php
University of California Museum of Paleontology The Polyplacophora

Chitons may be found mainly in the littoral surf zone. About 750 species of this
primordial mollusc class are known today. The largest one is Cryptochiton stelleri
with 33 cm (about 14 in.), living on the American north western coast.

In colloquial language, chitons are also called coat-of-mail shells, their shell
resembling the segmental armour on a knight's gauntlet, though, as we shall see
later, the shell of a chiton is not segmented in the biological sense of the word.

Not only chitons' shells are hard. Chitons, like snails, possess a rasp tongue (radula),
which they use to rasp food off the ground, if they are not among the few
carnivorous species, such as Placiphorella rubra (see below).

The Eastern beaded chiton (Chaetopleura apiculata) living in the Gulf of Mexico, the
North-Western Atlantic, the East Pacific as well as off Colombia, has the hardest
teeth known in nature - Chaetopleura often intensively rasps off stones where food
can be found in cracks and crevices. Materials research institutes now examine, how
this hard material (it interestingly is not brittle like many hard materials) develops
by interchanges between organic and inorganic materials and how it possibly could
be reproduced.

Polyplacophora Gray 1821

(Loricata Schumacher 1817, Polyplaxiphora Ducrotay-Blainville 1819, Placophora
Ihering 1876)
The living world of molluscs
http://www.molluscs.at/polyplacophora/index.html?/polyplacophora/main.html

Contrary to more highly developed mollusc groups, chitons do not possess a

calcareous shell. Instead, their back is protected by the sturdy cuticula of the
mantle. Compared to the molluscs' ancestors, the chitons' cuticula extends only to
the perimeter of its' back side. That is why it is also called perinotum or girdle. The
back itself is protected by eight overlapping calcareous shell plates, which give the
chiton its gauntlet-like appearance. In some chiton species the perinotum extends
further up the back, which is why Cryptochiton stelleri, already mentioned earlier,
also is called gumboot chiton.

Chiton in principle is only one of many possible systematic names in the group, that
is scientifically called Polyplacophora (Molluscs bearing multiple shell plates).
As was already mentioned, chitons, as well as other molluscs, possess a radula,
which enables them to grind down their food. Below it, there is a so-called
subradular organ a chemical sense organ which gives the chiton information about
suitable food in the vicinity. By far the most chitons are herbivores and live on algae
they rasp from the rocks and also from mussels in their vicinity. When doing so, they
cling hard to the ground with their powerful foot, supported by the sturdy girdle.

Molluscs usually do not have longitudinal muscles, which would be rendered useless
by the hard dorsal shell. Chitons, however, do have a strong longitudinal muscle,
that enables them to roll in like a woodlouse. Should the chiton be separated from
the ground it can so protect all of its body, just as a hedgehog would.
Gordon, L. M.; Joester D. (2011): "Nanoscale chemical tomography of buried
organicinorganic interfaces in the chiton tooth". Nature 469: 194-197.

Morphology:
Chitons are dorso-ventrally flattened and are bilaterally symmetrical. They have an
elongated oval body. Dorsally, the mantle bears eight shell valves. These arched
transverse plates interlock along the anterior-posterior margins in such a way that
the animal is able to curl up into a ball when disturbed. The mantle skirt extends
around the whole periphery of the animal as a girdle (Polyplacophora-transverse
sec.). The ventral surface is mainly occupied by the muscular foot, which is
surrounded by the mantle cavity. This mantle cavity lies essentially posteriorly and
contains the anus, renal pores, genital openings, osphradium and gills. In all chitons,
the mantle cavity is continuous with deep channels that extend anteriorly on each
side of the animal between the girdle and the foot. The head is small, anteriorly
situated, and hidden from dorsal view by the girdle. It is not clearly demarcated
from the rest of the body. The head bears no eyes or tentacles but has a median
mouth armed with a radula.
The morphology of the shell valves is one of the principal taxonomic characters of
the Polyplacophora. The head valve (1), or anterior valve, is typically
undifferentiated. The dorsal surface of the intermediate valves (2-7) can be divided
into three main areas: a central jugal area, flanked by two median triangles and
posteriorly two lateral triangles. The tail valve (8), or posterior valve, is divided into
two areas: the antemucronal and the postmucronal areas, defined by the position of
the mucro.
The shell valves are composed of four layers: the outer periostracum, which
contains most of the pigments; the tegmentum, which is perforated by numerous
horizontal and vertical canals; the articulamentum and innermost the hypostracum,
a thin layer found only in some regions of the valves. The edges of the valves,
where they are embedded in the girdle, are termed insertion plates, while the
articulating projections found on the anterior edge of all valves, except the head
valve, are termed the sutural laminae. Both these structures are projections of the
articulamentum. Some species have notches in the insertion plates. From these
notches, rows of holes, the notch rays, perforate the ventral surface of the valve
towards the posterior edge of valves 1-7, or towards the mucro of valve 8. The jugal
area of valves 2-7 may also be perforated by similar holes. These holes are
openings for the aesthete canals. These canals accommodate outgrowths of the
mantle epithelium. These outgrowths terminate in apical sense organs, the
aesthetes. The sculpturing and morphology of the valves is closely related to the

abundance and distribution of the aesthete canals. Each aesthete complex may be
associated with a raised papilla on the valve surface or the complexes run together
without any sculpturing to separate them.
Source: Jones and Baxter, 1987.
Marine Species identification portal
Mollusca of the North Sea
M.J. de Kluijver, S.S. Ingalsuo & R.H. de Bruyne
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