The
snails have two pairs of tentacles on its head. One pair is longer than the
other pair. The eyes are on the longer pair. The shorter pair is used for
smelling and feeling its way around. The tentacles are very important to a
snail.
Snails can be found in gardens, in ponds and even in the sea. They belong to a group of animals with a soft body called molluscs which are related to oysters, clams, and other shellfish. Characteristically they have soft, unsegmented bodies. Normally, a hard shell protects their soft bodies. The scientific name for the snail is Helix aspersa. It is a gastropod which in Latin means, gastro for stomach and pod for foot. The body of the snail is long, moist and slimy. It has a shell to protect its soft body. When the snail is disturbed, it simply withdraws or pulls itself back into its shell. The snail also retreats into its shell and seals the entrance in dry weather to protect its body from drying up. A snail is most active at night and on cloudy days. It does not like the sunshine very much. During very cold weather or winter, it hibernates in the ground.
Snails have different shaped shells. It can be a single shell that is rounded, spiral high and pointed or it can be flat.
Some people keep snails in aquariums together with their fish. However, they must make sure that they control the number because snails reproduce rapidly!!
Snails do not like hot and dry conditions. They like it moist or humid and not too bright. You can collect some snails and put them into a transparent container. Put some leaves in it, keep it moist and you can observe and see how a snail moves and also its mouth part.
Snails can live up to 5 to 10 years. Some have been known to live up to 15 years.
Yes, the eye is on the tip of the tentacles. The
snails have two pairs of tentacles on its head. One pair is longer than the
other pair. The eyes are on the longer pair. The shorter pair is used for
smelling and feeling its way around. The tentacles are very important to a
snail.
A snail has something called a radula in its mouth for grinding up its food. This radula is like a rough tongue, something like a file with rows of tiny teeth which it uses to scrap off leaves and flowers to eat. Many people get upset and farmers get angry when snails eat their plants and crops. Snails can cause serious damage to crops. Snails eat mostly living plants as well as decaying plants. They also chew on fruits and young succulent plant barks.
The largest known land snail named Gee Geronimo was a Giant African Snail collected in Sierra Leone in 1976. It weighed about 900g and measured over 15 39.3 cm from snout to tail.
The snail moves by creeping on a flat "foot" underneath the body. The band of muscles in the foot contract and expand and this create a kind of rippling movement that pushes the snail forward. The "foot" has a special gland that produces slimy mucus to make a slippery track. You can often see these silvery tracks in the garden. The slime comes out from the front and hardens when it comes into contact with air. The snail is able to move on very sharp pointed needles, knife, razors and vines without being injured because the mucus-like secretion helps to protect its body.
Look at how the snail wraps its soft body around the branch so that it will not fall off.
The snail is both male and female. Therefore, it can produce sperms and eggs at the same time! Isn't that incredible? However, to fertilize the eggs, the snails need to exchange sperms with each other. An animal which is both a male and a female is called a hermaphrodite. The brown garden snail lays about 80 spherical shaped white or yellowish coloured eggs at a time into the topsoil of the ground. It can lay eggs up to six times a year. Snails take about 2 years to become adults.
Snails spend many hours courting before they mate. They twist themselves around each other and cover themselves in frothy slime. After mating, each snail will go search for a soft ground to dig and lay its eggs. The snail lay its eggs in a nest, 2.5 to 4 cm deep in the soil. Each snail can lay an average of 85 eggs and they hatch in 2 to 4 weeks, depending on the temperature and moisture of the soil. The eggs are concealed with a mixture of soil and mucus. They are then covered with excrement. Low temperatures of less than 12C and low humidity inhibit laid eggs. Snails lay eggs most often during the warm and damp weather. It can be as often as once a month or every 6 weeks. Their most active months are from February to October.
The first thing that a newly hatched snail does is to find food. It will eat whatever that is left of its eggshell too. It will also eat any eggs that have not hatched yet. As the snail grows, its shell grows too in a spiral shape. The new shell is added at the opening of the shell. The part of the shell the baby snail was born with, ends up in the middle of the spiral. The snails have enemies too Snails have many natural enemies. They are the ground beetles, snakes, toads, turtles, and birds including chickens, ducks and geese.
Slimy was a young snail. Slimy got sick of staying in its old home. So, one day, Slimy decided to look for a new home.
Slimy travelled for a long time, slowly crawling and searching. To Slimy it felt like a very long and tiring journey but he was determined. Then Slimy reached a garden. It was a beautiful garden with so many flowers and plants. Slimy was so excited when it saw the garden. Slimy wanted to make this place its new home.
The first thing Slimy did when it got to the garden was eat. Slimy was so hungry from all the travelling it did. Slimy found a nice delicious plant to feed on. The leaves were so green and juicy. "Just nice for me, yum !" said Slimy.
Slimy spend the next several days just eating and relaxing until almost all the leaves on that plant was almost gone. "Time to move on to another delicious plant", Slimy thought. That was what Slimy did exactly. It moved on to a new plant. Just about when Slimy wanted to start eating, there was a loud shriek. Slimy peeked out and saw a lady. She looked upset and angry looking at the plant that Slimy had eaten. "Oh, oh ", said Slimy. "This does not look good." Slimy was frighten and hid under a leaf so that the lady cannot see or find it.
The lady searched all over, trying to get the culprit who was responsible for destroying her beautiful plant. Lucky thing for Slimy, she did not see it hiding under the leaf. Unfortunately, some of Slimy's neighbours were not so lucky. The lady caught them and put them all in a bucket and took them away. Slimy did not wait to see what the lady was going to do with its neighbours. Slimy decided that this was not the place that it wanted to make its home. It was a dangerous place to be in. So, Slimy crawled down from the plant and went on its journey to find a new home again.
