Distribution of Heavy Metal Concentrations in the Different Soft and Hard Tissues of Tropical Mud-Flat Snail Telescopium telescopium (Family: Potamididae) Collected From Sepang Besar River

The concentrations of Cd, Cu, Pb, Fe, Ni and Zn were determined in the different partsof the soft tissues (foot, cephalic tentacle, mantle, muscle, gill, digestive caecum andremaining soft tissues) and three parts of hard tissues or shells (anterior shell, middle shelland posterior shell) of the mud-flat snail Telescopium telescopium collected from SepangBesar River. From the cluster analysis, the dendrogram shows that the three parts of theshells are clustered separately from the different parts of the soft tissues, indicating differentmechanisms and strategies of metal accumulation and regulation of heavy metals in theshells from the different soft tissues. Among the different soft tissues, the dendrogramalso shows that the digestive caecum is clustered differently from other soft tissues,indicating that this organ is distinctly high in metal accumulation and this may probablysuggest a different route of metal sequestration from the rest of the soft tissues. The metaldistribution found in the different soft tissues of T. telescopium is an important knowledgein establishing this mud-flat gastropod as a promising biomonitor of metal contaminationand bioavailability for the intertidal area of Peninsular Malaysia