The Mollusca are a large, diverse, and economically important group that ranges from slugs and snails through to clams and oysters to octopus, squid, and cuttlefish. They are evolutionary ancient and better known than most invertebrate groups because of their calcareous skeletons which has led to their excellent preservation as fossils.

This is a state-of-the-art summary of research into Molluscs and their evolution. There is no comparable text - the last piece of research was published a decade ago, since when research has moved on substantially.