- Phylum Mollusca (digitalatlasofancientlife.org)
With over 70,000 living species (Rosenburg, 2014), the phylum Mollusca is second only to the Arthropoda in terms of total species diversity. The great diversity of mollusks is owed at least in part to their success in occupying most habitats on earth, including the marine realm, freshwater lakes and rivers, and even land. Some are filter feeders, some are herbivores, and some are deadly predators. The strong, easily-preserved shells of mollusks have left behind a rich Cambrian to Pleistocene fossil record and they have long been important subjects of macroevolutionary analyses of the fossil record.
- Cape Verde (Wikipedia)
Cape Verde (/ˈvɜːrd(i)/, VURD(-ee)) or Cabo Verde (/ˌkɑːboʊ ˈvɜːrdeɪ/ KAH-boh VUR-day, /ˌkæboʊ -/ KAB-oh -, local Portuguese: [ˈkabu ˈveɾdɨ]), officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about 4,033 square kilometres (1,557 sq mi). These islands lie between 600 and 850 kilometres (320 and 460 nautical miles) west of Cap-Vert, the westernmost point of continental Africa. The Cape Verde islands form part of the Macaronesia ecoregion, along with the Azores, the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Savage Isles.
