Although most limpet species have a planktonic veliger stage and possess ciliated bands for locomotion, few if any appear capable of feeding.  Studies on larvae of limpets Lottia pelta and L. scutum at Friday Harbor Laboratories, Washington suggest that although feeding currents seem to be generated by cilia and particles are observed in motion, the currents seem mainly to have a cleansing function.  Moreover, when plastic microspheres and microalgal cells of several species are provided to the veligers, none is found in the stomachs, yet the particles are readily eaten by veligers of other gastropods (e.g., Lacuna spp.).  The authors suggest that if the ciliation in these limpets and its proposed function represent the ancestral condition, then these cleansing cilia may have been modified for feeding later in evolution.  Hadfield et al. 1997 Invert Biol 116: 313.

NOTE  veligers of 2 other primitive gastropod species included in the study, Diodora aspera (a patellogastropod) and Calliostoma ligatum (a vetigastropod) also appear not to feed

NOTE  the algal particles are observed with fluorescence microscopy, which causes the chlorophyll in the algal cells to fluoresce bright red-orange