Modern Gastropods have undergone elongation of the shell and visceral mass in order to make room in the shell for enlargement of the gonads and digestive system. This lead to flexure of the gut, creating a U shaped gut structure as opposed to the previous elongate, straight gut. This places the stomach posterior and dorsal, and both the mouth and anus at the anterior and ventral side of the animal, posing a significant sanitation problem. Vetigastropods have genital pores to compensate, allowing waste material to exit through these pores, avoiding any of these materials being within close proximity to the mouth region (see figure 1) (Rupport et al. 2004).

A characteristic internal trait of Gastropods is torsion, which is the 180° rotation of the visceral mass, shell, mantle, and mantle cavity in relation to the head and the foot. The benefits of torsion are unknown, and as mentioned do create a problem with sanitation. However for this trait to have persisted in the class for so long, there must be an underlying associated adaptive advantage yet to be uncovered (Rupport et al. 2004).

The gastropod gut (see figure 1) consists of a mouth, buccal cavity, esophagus, stomach, intestine, rectum and an anus. As discussed in the diet section of this webpage, Turban Snails are grazers that feed through use of their radula. Digestion occurs at least partly extracellularly in the stomach (Rupport et al. 2004).