Conchology in the context of "Hugh Cuming"

The gastropod shell is part of the body of many gastropods, including snails, a kind of mollusc. The shell is an exoskeleton, which protects from predators, mechanical damage, and dehydration, but also serves for muscle attachment and calcium storage. Some gastropods appear shell-less (slugs) but may have a remnant within the mantle, or in some cases the shell is reduced such that the body cannot be retracted within it (semi-slug).

Some snails also possess an operculum that seals the opening of the shell, known as the aperture, which provides further protection. The study of mollusc shells is known as conchology. The biological study of gastropods, and other molluscs in general, is malacology. Shell morphology terms vary by species group.

Malacology, from Ancient Greek μαλακός (malakós), meaning "soft", and λόγος (lógos), meaning "study", is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (molluscs or mollusks), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, and cephalopods, along with numerous other kinds, many of which have shells.

Fields within malacological research include studies of mollusk taxonomy, ecology and evolution. Several subdivisions of malacology exist, including conchology, devoted to the study of mollusk shells, limacology, the study of gastropods, and teuthology, the study of cephalopods such as octopus, squid, and cuttlefish. Applied malacology studies medical, veterinary, and agricultural applications, for example the study of mollusks as vectors of schistosomiasis and other diseases.

Isaac Lea (March 4, 1792 – December 8, 1886) was an American publisher, conchologist and geologist. He was a partner in the publishing businesses Matthew Carey & Sons; Carey, Lea & Carey; Carey, Lea & Blanchard; and Lea & Blanchard.

He authored multiple books describing the freshwater mussel genus Unio and named 1,842 species of fifty genera of freshwater and land mollusks. He sparked a scientific controversy amongst geologists when he published about his discovery of fossilized footprints in Mount Carbon, Pennsylvania, that he incorrectly proposed were from a reptile from the Devonian Period over 360 million years old. The fossil has since been identified as that of an amphibian from the Mississippian Age over 330 million years old.

Humans have made multiple uses of molluscs, including as food, and they feature in art and in literature.

Useful interactions with molluscs range from their use as food, where species as diverse as snails and squid are eaten in many countries, to the employment of molluscs as shell money and to make dyestuffs and musical instruments, for personal adornment with seashells, pearls, or mother-of-pearl, as items to be collected, as fictionalised sea monsters, and as raw materials for craft items such as Sailor's Valentines. Some bivalves are used as bioindicators to monitor the health of marine and freshwater environments.