Amazing facts about snails. Elementary biology: children about the snail Snails that we don't know
A snail is a unique living creature that is protected by a shell and can live not only in the wild, but also at home.
2. The body of snails is asymmetrical and consists of a leg with a sole, a body and a head. The head and leg are drawn into the shell with the help of a very strong special muscle that covers the entire body of the snail.
3. Snails appeared on Earth about 600 million years ago. This allows us to consider them one of the most ancient inhabitants of our planet, along with jellyfish.
4. The word snail comes from the Old Slavonic "snail" - hollow because of its house (shell), which is empty without an animal.
5. Snails are distributed all over the globe. They can adapt to any environment and do not require much food. These amazing creatures are the most striking example proving Darwin's theory and his principles of evolution.
6. Snails have more than 110,000 species, 2,000 of them are found in Russia. Snails are divided according to their place of residence into: marine; land; freshwater. They are pulmonary, gill.
grape snail
7. Grape snail is a large-sized land snail with a habitat that is the European part of our continent. The shell of this type of snail is 50 millimeters, which is spirally curved in 5 turns. Her legs are 35 to 52 millimeters long and 22 millimeters wide.
8. The color of the grape snail ranges from cream to brown with a red tint. The first 3 turns along the entire diameter alternate with light and dark stripes. Small ribs are clearly visible on the outer side of the shell. In the wild, this mollusk lives from 8 to 20 years.
9. In winter, the grape snail is at rest for three months, attaching its sole to the substrate and clogging the shell with special mucus. During wintering, the snail loses up to 10% of its weight. After activation, the mollusk recovers within a month and a half.
10. Grape snail is able to tolerate low temperatures down to -7 ° C, but not more than 10 hours. Grape snail at home is bred for a long time.
geographic cone
11. The most poisonous gastropod is a Geographical cone living in the Pacific and Indian Ocean. It produces enough toxins to kill 10 people. An antidote for the poison of this mollusk has not yet been found. This venomous snail affects its enemies by releasing a cloud of high levels of insulin that instantly lowers the victim's blood sugar levels.
12. Snails are able to crawl along the blade of a knife and not get hurt - while moving, the sole of their foot rests on a kind of “pillow” of mucus that protects the body of the mollusk and helps it move.
13. Most snails are hermaphrodites, that is, females and males at the same time. They do not need a partner for procreation.
14. At one time, snails lay about 85 eggs, from which cubs hatch after a month.
15. The color of the snail shell directly depends on the color of the soil and the composition of the feed.
garden snail
16. The fastest snail is the garden snail, which has a speed of up to 60 m/h, while the average speed of other snails is 5.4 m/h.
17. If environmental conditions become unfavorable, snails can hibernate for up to six months. Thanks to this ability, garden snails tolerate temperatures up to -120 degrees.
18. These cute little creatures have incredible strength: they can carry 10 times more weight than their own weight.
19. The shells of almost all snails twist clockwise. The strength of this "dwelling" depends on the amount of calcium in the diet of the mollusk.
20. One of the largest grape snails was discovered in 1976. It weighed 2 kilograms and was 15 inches long.
21. Snails have fully earned their reputation as the slowest creatures on Earth - on average, they overcome 7 centimeters per minute. For comparison, the sloth moves at a speed of about two meters per minute.
22. Salt and sugar for snails are equivalent to poison.
23. A snail is born with a shell, only in babies it is thin and transparent.
24. Snails are far from stupid creatures. They are able to think and make decisions based on their life experiences.
25. Snails do not chew, but grind food with the help of 25 thousand teeth. They have more teeth than any shark.
Australian trumpeter
26. Australian trumpeter - a large gastropod. The giant snail weighs 18 kilograms. It belongs to the class of predators, lives at a depth of 30 meters in the coastal region of Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia and feeds on worms.
27. The eyesight of snails is so poor that they can only tell day from night.
Snail Karakolus
28. In the mantle of snails that live in water, gills are located. This organ must be constantly washed by a stream of water, in order to organize this process, the mantle is equipped with: an inlet siphon through which the liquid enters; outlet siphon through which water is removed.
29. Snails live in nature and feed on animal food. Such species are distinguished by teeth in the form of a drill. It can drill into the oyster shell or other hard protective shells, which helps the mollusk get to the meat.
30. Snails communicate with each other by touch.
australian maritime
31. The largest snail is the Australian sea snail. It weighs up to 40 kilograms and grows up to 30 centimeters in length.
32. Clam mucus is a compound that is very important for the snail. It consists of a complex protein (mucin) and water.
33. Mucin regulates the processes of mineralization and the creation of a shell. Slime is divided into two types. The first type helps the mollusk move by moistening the surface. The second type is produced by a special gland, as a response to any stress and mechanical damage to the shell. The main components of such mucus are polysaccharides, mineral salts, which have restorative, regenerating properties.
34. The unique properties of mucin are widely used today in cosmetology as a rejuvenating, sunscreen, moisturizer.
35. In England, snail races are often arranged: animals crawl along their treadmill along the “trail” of lettuce leaves. The fastest snail is rewarded with this very lettuce leaf.
Fried snails, French cuisine
36. It is not for nothing that snail meat is considered a delicacy in many countries - it has a pleasant taste, and it surpasses a chicken egg in protein content.
37 The smallest mollusk is Angustopila dominikae. Its size is 0.8 mm. Compare: 4 such snails can easily fit in the eye of a needle.
38. Small snails can move with the help of the beating of cilia.
39. The almost complete lack of vision in snails compensates for a very developed sense of smell - an individual without a shell smells food at a distance of up to two meters.
40 The Burgundy snail lives in France, which sleeps in cold winters and dry summers, but when it rains warmly, it begins to "sing" - it makes sounds that resemble melodious singing.
Snail radula
41. Representatives of gastropods are distinguished by a special organ in the oral cavity - the radula. This organ performs the functions of the tongue and teeth. The radula consists of a cartilaginous plate on which there are several rows of teeth of various shapes.
42. Vegetarian snails have small teeth, predators have large ones in the form of a pike or gaff. The number of teeth in a cochlea can reach 25,000. Basically, the radula includes 120 rows, each with 100 teeth = 12,000.
43. Poisonous snails mainly have teeth with a cavity through which poison paralyzing the victim flows from a special gland.
44. Gastropods are among the most inconspicuous organisms on earth. But, despite this, the individual has enough enemies: sea gobies; sardine; sea stars; mackerel; whales; herring; hermit crabs. Freshwater mollusks should be afraid of: trout; storks; frogs; herons.
45. For land snails, the danger is: moles; thrushes; wild boars; lizards; hedgehogs.
Slug
46. Slugs are a snail without a shell, which is completely similar to its relative. Some species have a small inconspicuous shell covered by a mantle.
47. Snail horns are a nose turned inside out (all receptors that are located inside in humans are outside in snails).
48. Since many cuisines of the world use snail meat as a delicacy, there are even special farms for breeding them.
49. Recently, scientists are beginning to use the cochlea as a donor of nervous tissue for the brain affected by the disease - in particular, we are talking about epilepsy. Experiments on rats are successful.
50. In many parts of the world, snail shells are used as decorations and for crafts.
African Achatina snails
photo from internet
You can’t call them hyperactive pets, however, an attentive owner will definitely notice changes in their pet’s behavior. And, some of them should alert you. Among such stop symptoms, when it is time to start sounding the alarm, we would include the situation when the snail climbed deep into the shell and does not crawl out of it. Why is this happening? What is the danger of such seclusion? And how to help the snail?
Snail in the shell
As you and I already know, a shell is a part of the body of a snail, and a snail with a shell represents a single living organism (more on this is written). If a snail suddenly, for some reason you don’t understand, climbed deep into the shell, this means that something happened to your unusual pet. And, the longer the snail is inside the shell, the more serious this "something".
Sealing in the shell has a particularly negative effect on young individuals. When this happens during the growth period, the snails, upon awakening, look weakened, lag behind in development, and differ in size from their awake relatives.
Why does a snail crawl into a shell
Wrong conditions of detention
If you keep a snail in an environment that is not comfortable for her, she can climb deep into the shell to hide from the discomfort outside. Therefore, first of all, check the indicators of humidity and temperature. At low humidity and low temperatures, the snail may go into temporary hibernation. And the longer she stays in it, the harder it will be to wake her up. Your sleeping beauty can seal the mouth with a special protective film - an epiphragm - it is formed by glands that produce mucus. You should normalize the conditions of detention, and perhaps then your snail will get out of the shell.
Stress
Wrong diet
In the event of a lack or absence of a suitable type of food, the snail can hide in the shell.
How to make a snail leave its shell
Despite the fact that snail hibernation is a completely natural state, unfortunately, snails often do not come out of hibernation. Therefore, to promote their sleep, unless absolutely necessary, is not worth it. In order to force the snail to leave the shell, bathe it in warm boiled water - this should be an incentive for your pet to destroy the protective film on its own and be born. After that, it is recommended to place the snail in a comfortable habitat, and for reliability, moisten it with water.
If the snail is in the depth of the shell for more than one day, it can go deeper into it, making more and more barriers. Getting her back to active life is getting harder and harder. In this case, in order to prevent dehydration and exhaustion of your pet, try pouring a little cucumber juice into the snail's shell, bathe it in chamomile broth. When the snail finally shows the head from the shell, offer her pumpkin or squash puree (without salt and sugar) with the addition of fodder chalk. This will help her regain her strength.
Video about domestic snails
Today we talked about the reasons why a snail can hide in its shell and how to lure it out of its shell. We hope that our tips and tricks will help you wake up your sleeping beauty or handsome man. Well, so that this does not happen, and today's information is not useful to you in practice, we recommend that you follow our recommendations on keeping snails at home.
Have you ever experienced a situation where a snail didn't want to leave its shell? Share with us your ways to wake up a snail from hibernation? We are waiting for your stories, photos of your snails, which you can post on the pages of our Vkontakte group.
What do we know about the snail?
Interesting facts about snailsWhich creature always carries its house on itself? Well, of course, a snail!
Among the ancient Greeks, they were considered a medicine and, indeed, helped with diseases. Another ancient people - the Phoenicians - used red snails to extract beautiful paint and dyed clothes for it. And in Africa and South America, the shells of large snails were replaced not so long ago by ... money. In ancient times, people honored the snail also because its shell has the shape of a spiral. And the spiral has always been considered a symbol of life.
You can meet snails somewhere in the shade: under a stone, a log or among fallen leaves. The key is to keep it damp. Otherwise, the body of the snail will dry out and it will die.
We know that the snail crawls very slowly. And yet? ... everything! We don't know anything more about her! Look at the snail. Under her shell is a soft, weak body. Weak? No matter how! Some snails can stick to the stone so much that you can’t pick it off with a knife right away.
Interestingly, snails move. Their soft “sole” constantly releases a special lubricant so that when “walking” it does not damage the delicate body. The front part of the "sole" is pulled out and firmly clings to the support. And then the back pulls up to her. So, slowly, the snail crawls about 30 centimeters in an hour. However, the snail is not averse to traveling at someone else's expense. For example, clinging to the bottom of the ship, she calmly moves thousands of kilometers from her birthplace.
Snails live in small groups. At night, when it gets cool, they crawl out to feed. Almost everything is eaten: leaves, worms, small larvae of other inhabitants of the forest. And they search for food by touch, with tentacle horns. Snails see poorly, their small eyes can only distinguish day from night. However, they have a very good sense of smell. For example, a slug - a snail without a shell - smells food, being from it as much as two meters.
Among the snails there are absolutely crumbs, 2-3 millimeters in size, and there are also giants: their houses are the size of three matchboxes stacked on top of each other. They are the ones that cause the most trouble for people.
On warm spring nights, snails go in search of their own kind for mating. Having found each other, future parents start a wedding. They circle, touching each other with tentacles. Sometimes this goes on for several hours. After courtship is over, the snails cling tightly to each other and surround themselves with mucus so as not to unstick during mating. At this time, there are already 10-12 embryos in each snail.
Observing snails, scientists have found that they are most likely to mate in the spring. In general, most snails breed all year round. The warmer and more humid the weather is in the yard, the more prolific they are. They mate as slowly as they move. A couple in love can stand all night, squeezing each other "in arms" in mucus.
Well, the snails mated, injected each other with sperm - fertilization occurred. The snails are spreading, and eggs have already begun to grow in them, dressing in a shell.
Surprisingly, most snails have neither males nor females. Each of them during mating is both the future father and the future mother. After the snails are tightly stuck together, each of them introduces a thin white process into the other. Sperm seeps through it. Sperm, like embryos, can be in each of the mating snails.
Such pairing is an interesting phenomenon. It has been preserved since time immemorial, when animals were not always divided into males and females - they had no sex. This proves that snails are very ancient creatures that have hardly changed since then.
A week or two after mating, the snails dig a shallow hole - three centimeters - and lay their eggs in it. Then they cover the masonry with earth. A grape snail can lay 30-40 eggs at a time, and in just a summer - several tens of thousands. The fact is that the snail has a lot of enemies. And if they fail to catch the snail itself, they willingly feed on its eggs. Both beetles, and worms, and other small insects consider snail eggs the most delicious food and diligently look for them. So, in the end, only a very small part of the masonry will survive looting. This means that in order not to interrupt the genus of the snail, it simply needs to be so prolific.
The snail is so sure that one of its offspring will survive that it does not consider it necessary to monitor the clutch. Having laid her eggs, she crawls away about her business, and the masonry remains a lonely heap in the ground. Any small living creatures immediately run to it. As if they were just waiting for the mother snail to leave her offspring! The feast begins with a mountain ...
Some people still manage to survive. The shell on the eggs became thin and almost transparent. So it's been three or four weeks. Baby snails are ready to crawl out into the light. The shells are transparent because small snails feed on them. Finally, they hatch from eggs.
Young snails are very similar to their parents, only their shells are still small, thin and soft. At first, the snails remain underground and feed on the remains of the eggshell. But soon stocks run out. It's time to get to the surface.
When young snails crawl out of the ground, they immediately begin to behave like adults. They literally eat everything. But they especially like green leaves. The uvula of the snail is covered with many small sharp teeth. As with a file, she “saws off” small pieces from the leaf and swallows them. Young snails begin to eat voraciously in order to grow faster.
How much will a snail eat? Millions of them attack the greens. And sometimes snails become a real disaster for people. For example, grape snails can ruin a large vineyard in a few days - there are so many of them. In the Hawaiian Islands, more than three kilograms of little gluttons were once removed from one square meter of garden.
Just two hundred years ago, huge pest snails lived only in Africa. And now they're destroying greenery on half the globe. As "free" passengers, snails "come" on ships to other countries and shamelessly rob them.
Among the snails there are also giants, but they live in countries with a warm climate. And in Russia, the largest snail has a matchbox-high shell.
With the first frost, the snails begin to prepare for winter. They burrow into the ground or hide under leaves. Then they pull the whole body into the shell and close the entrance to it with a film of mucus, which then hardens. “Having closed the doors”, the snail falls asleep until spring. So they can endure extreme heat and cold. For example, a garden snail can withstand cooling up to 120 degrees. On Earth, there is no such cold at all. When winter comes, the snails freeze into the ice and sleep peacefully.
The viability of the snail is simply amazing. If the conditions are unfavorable for her, she can hibernate for as long as six months. And she is able to change her environment. When, on one of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, the Achatina snail began to eat tea bushes, it was robbed and taken far into the ocean. But the "land" snail swam back. I had to collect it again and now just burn it.
With the end of winter and the beginning of spring, the snails begin to wake up. Emaciated during the winter, they greedily pounce on food. And when the forces are restored, nature tells the snails to take care of procreation.
Pour sand on the bottom of the aquarium, and dry earth on top. Then put in some moss and a piece of wood so the snails can hide underneath - they love shade. Now you can plant residents. Just do not forget to cover the aquarium with glass on top - otherwise the snails will spread. And, most importantly, sprinkle the bottom with water more often. And you can feed your wards with leaves or grass. If the aquarium is dark and damp, the snails will feel comfortable.
It is interesting to watch snails, some people are calmed by the sight of slowly crawling snails.
Information provided by the cattery “newpets”.
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Updated Nov 30, 2013. Created 09 Mar 2011 | |||||||||
Snails are not only garden pests, as many mistakenly believe. For some, these creatures are favorite pets, for someone they are an object of close study. There are a huge number of species of snails in the world, and these creatures have developed amazing life mechanisms during evolutionary processes.
- Snails appeared on Earth about 600 million years ago. This allows us to consider them one of the most ancient inhabitants of our planet, along with jellyfish (see).
- Snails are one of the strongest pieces of evidence for Darwin's theory of evolution, they can adapt to almost any environment.
- These mollusks can pull themselves entirely into the shell thanks to a special muscle that covers the entire body of the snail.
- Snails are far from stupid creatures. They are able to think and make decisions based on their life experiences.
- Snails are able to crawl along the blade of a knife and not get hurt - while moving, the sole of their foot rests on a kind of “pillow” of mucus that protects the body of the mollusk and helps it move.
- If environmental conditions become unfavorable, snails can hibernate for up to six months. Thanks to this ability, garden snails tolerate temperatures up to -120 degrees.
- The average life expectancy of snails is 15 years. This is comparable to the lifespan of, for example, the Amur tiger (see).
- Most snails are hermaphrodites, that is, females and males at the same time. They do not need a partner for procreation.
- At one time, snails lay about 85 eggs, from which cubs hatch after a month.
- The shells of almost all snails twist clockwise. The strength of this "dwelling" depends on the amount of calcium in the diet of the mollusk.
- Snails do not chew, but grind food with the help of 25 thousand teeth. Yes, yes, they have more teeth than any shark (see).
- These creatures are able not only to drink in the usual sense of the word, but also to absorb moisture on the surface of their bodies.
- The eyesight of snails is so poor that they can only tell day from night.
- The almost complete lack of vision is compensated by a very developed sense of smell - an individual without a shell smells food at a distance of up to two meters.
- Snails are completely devoid of hearing and the ability to produce any sounds. But they have organs of balance and chemical sense.
- Snail horns are a nose turned inside out (all the receptors that are located inside in humans are outside in snails).
- Snails communicate with each other by touch.
- Snails are able to carry objects 10 times heavier than themselves.
- The largest snail in the world is the Australian sea snail. The weight of these mollusks reaches 15-18 kilograms, and the length of the shell is 60 centimeters.
- The color of the shell of all snails is different, since it depends on the composition of the food of the mollusk and the color of the soil in the place where it lives.
- Snails have fully earned their reputation as the slowest creatures on Earth - on average, they overcome 7 centimeters per minute. For comparison, the sloth moves at a speed of about two meters per minute (see).
- Doctors are conducting experiments on the use of snails as donors of nervous tissue for the brain affected by the disease - in particular, we are talking about epilepsy. Experiments on rats are successful.
- In the UK, "snail races" are very popular - clams slowly crawl from start to finish along the trail of lettuce leaves (see).
- Salt and sugar for snails are equivalent to poison.
- The nervous system of snails consists of 20 thousand neurons (the human brain, for comparison, contains several hundred billion neurons).
- The snail was the first "cyborg" that scientists managed to create - its neurons were successfully fixed on a silicon chip.
- It is not for nothing that snail meat is considered a delicacy in many countries - it has a pleasant taste, and in terms of protein content it surpasses a chicken egg.
The largest representative of land molluscs - the giant African snail Achatina is covered with pimply, wrinkled skin. The snail shell is massive and thick-walled. Respiration is cutaneous, gills are absent. Two pairs of small horns serve as organs of touch. Eyes are located at the ends of the first pair of horns.
Snails are mostly known for their speed, or lack thereof. We understand that they are not the fastest animals on Earth. But there are many other things about what snails are amazing. For example, one kind of snail can grow up to a foot and a half! Here are 16 more fascinating facts about these slow creatures.
The only measurable difference between snails and slugs is that the former has a shell. Smaller shells can help creatures be more mobile, an evolutionary advantage when it comes to stalking prey. Slimes and snails are mollusks, placing them in the same category as oysters, clams and mussels. Gastropods are the largest group of molluscs, accounting for over 80 percent of living mollusk species. They are also one of the most diverse animal groups in terms of form, habitat, and behavior.
The snail reaches a length of 15-20 cm and has a conical shell. The shell itself can be twisted both counterclockwise and in the opposite direction. In old African Achatina, 7 to 9 turns can be counted on the shell.
The color of the snail shell is different, but usually brown with alternating dark and light stripes. The body is gray to dark brown.
Does the little snail have enemies?
Some of these snails shoot "love darts" at their object of affection, containing a slime that increases the chances of their sperm surviving. However, in earlier times, people believed that these socket rockets were gifts of calcium, or were an aphrodisiac, and Ron Chase of McGill University claims that this could have been the inspiration for it to elicit Cupid's desire. The medical adhesive is designed for use in the repair of heart defects and will adhere to even jagged surfaces where traditional sutures can leak.
Life span of the African Achatina snail: at home 5-9 years.
The weight of the snail is about 250 grams.
Nutrition and feeding of the African snail Achatina
Achatina snail nutrition occurs with the help of a "tongue" seated with horn spikes.
Feeding the Achatina snail:
they eat rotting vegetation, carrion, mushrooms, algae, lichen, citrus bark. They feed mainly at night, in the evening. Its diet includes more than 500 different types of plants, vegetables, beans, pumpkin, melon, lettuce, potatoes, onions, carrots, sunflowers, eucalyptus, etc.
So far, this has only been tested on pig hearts. Some studies have found that snail mucus may be helpful in treating wound healing, possibly by activating an immune response that helps regenerate skin cells. Some freshwater snails do not breathe underwater through gills, but rely on lungs floating on the surface every time they need to breathe. Some snails have both gills and lungs. The apple snail has a siphon, a breathing tube that can extend to the surface of the water to breathe without exposing itself to predators.
Achatina are nocturnal, although in wet weather they often crawl out during the day. If there is not enough food and humidity decreases, snails burrow into the ground and hibernate. The mouth of the shell clogs with a film of mucus.
The tropical African snail can even survive frost and snow, but loses up to 60% of its own weight during hibernation.
It is also an aggressive predator with a keen sense of smell and loves to eat starfish, paralyzing them with poisonous saliva. The sea snail was considered a symbol for the Mesoamericans, who believed that the round shape of its shell represented the circle of life. Ends are very large sea snails. People used pipe pipes as musical instruments. Pipe pipes play an important role in ancient Greece, India and Hawaii. In ancient Greek mythology, for example, the sea god Triton calmed the waves with a conch pipe.
Some garden snails prefer to eat from the same food source as another snail, even if other food is available nearby. Her husband, president of the Automobile Club of France, raced under the name "Escargot". Some species of land snails have hairy shells, especially among juveniles. Scientists postulate that this may be an adaptation that improves locomotion in humid environments, as hairy snails tend to originate from humid areas.
Hermaphrodite. One Achatina snail lays eggs, about 100-400 small eggs, each of which is 4.5-5.5 mm in diameter.
Over the course of a lifetime, Achatina lays up to 5 mln. eggs.
Mollusks are very unpretentious. However, an appropriate correct care and maintenance of Achatina snails. When something does not suit them, for example, they do not like the conditions of detention, they can easily hibernate. Achatina do not like dry air and temperatures above +30 and below +16.
Some Achatina domestic snails with their hibernations - they are trying to achieve, for example, cucumbers or bananas, which they love very much.
Highsmith, whose novels Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley were adapted into now-famous films, reportedly preferred shellfish to humans. She kept about 300 snails as pets and they appear in several of her literary works. In the writer's biography, author Joan Shenkar quotes someone describing Highsmith as "a woman who produced snails from her purse and encouraged them to leave sticky marks on her master's table."
Any snail less than 2 inches long officially qualifies as a microgastropod.
Are you sitting at home thinking about snails? Perhaps you'd like to have him as a pet, or maybe you'd just like to annoy your sister with a slime. Read all these snail facts for kids so you can impress your friends with your gastropod gastropod knowledge.
Interesting facts about African Achatina snails
In medicine, Achatina snails are used as donors of nerve tissue for the treatment of human brain diseases.
Achatina snail horns It's the nose that's turned inside out. All olfactory receptors located inside the human nose are elongated in snails into horns.
As part of the natural world, you can learn a lot about the snail by discovering some of its biology. Snails and slugs belong to a group of molluscs known as gastropods. The next time you see a snail, you can make your friends think you're smart by saying: Wow! Look at this amazing gastropod! Snails are also molluscs, which are a group of hard-shelled animals. Other shellfish include clams, oysters, and octopuses. Scientists have found fossil snails millions of years ago.
In fact, they are one of the oldest animal species in the world. By most estimates, snails have been around for over 600 million years! Although slugs and snails are both gastropods, they are not the same animal. Some people think that slugs are just armless snails, but they are not. Snails don't hear. To find food, they use their sense of smell. Snails leave slime behind them as they travel. The mucus protects them as they move. It's impossible to tell if a snail is male or female because they are both!
Snails do not see, but they distinguish between light and darkness.
A snail has about 25 thousand teeth, which are arranged in the form of a "grater". With the help of this arrangement of teeth, they grind food.
In Africa, Achatina snails are eaten because they consider their meat to be delicious. In the USA, they are feared, as they can very quickly destroy hectares of planted crops and cause a national disaster.
In Europe, these large snails are ideal pets for children and adults.
Reproduction of African snails Achatina
Snails are hermaphrodites, which means they can lay eggs and fertilize them. Snails are mostly nocturnal. They will most likely come out at night or very early in the morning. Snails can live for 15-20 years, but that's probably a good thing since it can take a long time to cross a yard. Snails are invertebrates, which means they don't have a backbone, instead they have a protective shell. Snails are triplobastic protostomes. Their bodies are made up of three parts: legs, head and body.
Where do snails live, what do they eat and what do snails eat? . Snails can live almost anywhere, although they don't like heat. When the weather is hot, snails roar underground and wait until it cools down. There are both land snails and snails. Snails prefer moist, dark environments. Snails eat plants, algae, chalk, limestone, and sometimes each other. Snails eat by sliding on the surface of their food. They have what is known as a mouth ralula that grinds up their food. The radula is like a tiny tongue with a whole bunch of sharp teeth covering it.
The most amazing thing about African domestic snails is that they can sing. Naturally not like birds, their singing is more like a squeak. You can hear the singing or squeaking of Achatina when they get scared and begin to frantically hide in their shells.
Which creature always carries its house on itself? "Well, of course, a snail!" Snails have long been valued by people?
Birds, frogs and other small animals eat snails. Some people also like to eat snails. Do not eat raw snails, although they may hurt you. If you are planning to eat a snail, have someone follow the recipe and cook it properly. Snails are interesting creatures. . The largest snail ever found is from Sierra Leone in Africa. It weighed two pounds and was over 15 inches long. Snails hibernate in winter. There are more snails on Earth than insects. The Romans raised snails for food.
With all these fascinating snail facts, what will you do with your newfound knowledge? If you are in the garden and you see a snail, take a closer look to see if you can learn more about this amazing animal by watching it in action. When they feel threatened, they usually withdraw into their shell to protect themselves.
Among the ancient Greeks, they were considered a medicine and, indeed, helped with diseases. Another ancient people - the Phoenicians - used red snails to extract beautiful paint and dyed clothes for it. And in Africa and South America, the shells of large snails were replaced not so long ago by ... money. In ancient times, people honored the snail also because its shell has the shape of a spiral. And the spiral has always been considered a symbol of life.
The largest land gorge is Achatina Achatina, a giant African snail. Some land snails feed on other land snails. There are about 500 native species of land snails in North America. Snails that just hatch an egg can eat shells and even other eggs of their brothers.
Most snails live between 2 and 5 years, but in captivity some exceed 10 or 15 years. Courtship, the process by which they attract each other prior to mating, lasts between 2 and 12 hours. In some places people eat snail eggs and call them "white caviar".
You can meet snails somewhere in the shade: under a stone, a log or among fallen leaves. The key is to keep it damp. Otherwise, the body of the snail will dry out and it will die.
We know that the snail crawls very slowly. And yet? ... everything! We don't know anything more about her! Look at the snail. Under her shell is a soft, weak body. Weak? No matter how! Some snails can stick to the stone so much that you can’t pick it off with a knife right away.
As a rule, land snails hatch from eggs. Garden snail mucus is used to treat wrinkles, blemishes and scars on the skin. Most species of snails are hermaphrodites, so they have both male and female reproductive organs. The speed of snails is about 5-8 inches per second. If they move non-stop, it will take more than a week to walk 1 kilometer.
Land snails seal off the entrance to their shell with a dry secretion of mucus called the epiphragm, but some do so with a structure that in water snails is called an impeller. Snails don't change their shells when they grow up. Instead, the shell grows with them.
Interestingly, snails move. Their soft “sole” constantly releases a special lubricant so that when “walking” it does not damage the delicate body. The front part of the "sole" is pulled out and firmly clings to the support. And then the back pulls up to her. So, slowly, the snail crawls about 30 centimeters in an hour. However, the snail is not averse to traveling at someone else's expense. For example, clinging to the bottom of the ship, she calmly moves thousands of kilometers from her birthplace.
Land snails do not chew their food. Snail snakes breathe because of the lung. One street snail can have up to 430 chicks in a year. The size of a snail's shell reflects its age. Many snails are endangered. Some types of snails hibernate during the cold months of the year. They cover their bodies with a thin layer of mucus that keeps them from drying out. Sometimes snails also go through a similar process in the summer, called estination, to survive if it's a dry period. These processes are likely one of the reasons why they have survived for millions of years.
Among the snails there are absolutely crumbs, 2-3 millimeters in size, and there are also giants: their houses are the size of three matchboxes stacked on top of each other. They are the ones that cause the most trouble for people.
What do we know about the snail?
The life expectancy of snails depends on their habitat and species. Some of them live only about five years. However, others in captivity can live up to 25 years. The largest area snail recorded was 12 inches long and weighed about 2 pounds. Other species are tiny, only a few centimeters when they are adults and only a couple of ounces in weight.
When moving, the snails leave a trail of mucus. This mucus acts as a lubricant to reduce friction against the surface where they pass. It is a myth that snail mucus can hurt people. Many people fear that snails in their garden will destroy the food grown there and make them unfit for consumption, but this is not true.
On warm spring nights, snails go in search of their own kind for mating. Having found each other, future parents start a wedding. They circle, touching each other with tentacles. Sometimes this goes on for several hours. After courtship is over, the snails cling tightly to each other and surround themselves with mucus so as not to unstick during mating. At this time, there are already 10-12 embryos in each snail.
Observing snails, scientists have found that they are most likely to mate in the spring. In general, most snails breed all year round. The warmer and more humid the weather is in the yard, the more prolific they are. They mate as slowly as they move. A couple in love can stand all night, squeezing each other "in arms" in mucus.
Well, the snails mated, injected each other with sperm - fertilization occurred. The snails are spreading, and eggs have already begun to grow in them, dressing in a shell.
Surprisingly, most snails have neither males nor females. Each of them during mating is both the future father and the future mother. After the snails are tightly stuck together, each of them introduces a thin white process into the other. Sperm seeps through it. Sperm, like embryos, can be in each of the mating snails.
Such pairing is an interesting phenomenon. It has been preserved since time immemorial, when animals were not always divided into males and females - they had no sex. This proves that snails are very ancient creatures that have hardly changed since then.
A week or two after mating, the snails dig a shallow hole - three centimeters - and lay their eggs in it. Then they cover the masonry with earth. A grape snail can lay 30-40 eggs at a time, and in just a summer - several tens of thousands. The fact is that the snail has a lot of enemies. And if they fail to catch the snail itself, they willingly feed on its eggs. Both beetles, and worms, and other small insects consider snail eggs the most delicious food and diligently look for them. So, in the end, only a very small part of the masonry will survive looting. This means that in order not to interrupt the genus of the snail, it simply needs to be so prolific.
The snail is so sure that one of its offspring will survive that it does not consider it necessary to monitor the clutch. Having laid her eggs, she crawls away about her business, and the masonry remains a lonely heap in the ground. Any small living creatures immediately run to it. As if they were just waiting for the mother snail to leave her offspring! The feast begins with a mountain ...
Some people still manage to survive. The shell on the eggs became thin and almost transparent. So it's been three or four weeks. Baby snails are ready to crawl out into the light. The shells are transparent because small snails feed on them. Finally, they hatch from eggs.
Young snails are very similar to their parents, only their shells are still small, thin and soft. At first, the snails remain underground and feed on the remains of the eggshell. But soon stocks run out. It's time to get to the surface.
When young snails crawl out of the ground, they immediately begin to behave like adults. They literally eat everything. But they especially like green leaves. The uvula of the snail is covered with many small sharp teeth. As with a file, she “saws off” small pieces from the leaf and swallows them. Young snails begin to eat voraciously in order to grow faster.
How much will a snail eat? Millions of them attack the greens. And sometimes snails become a real disaster for people. For example, grape snails can ruin a large vineyard in a few days - there are so many of them. In the Hawaiian Islands, more than three kilograms of little gluttons were once removed from one square meter of garden.
Just two hundred years ago, huge pest snails lived only in Africa. And now they're destroying greenery on half the globe. As "free" passengers, snails "come" on ships to other countries and shamelessly rob them.
Snails grow, and their shells grow. They harden, become thicker, dark rings-coils appear on them. Snails stop growing only after they are one year old. By this time, 4-5 rings appear on their shells. In general, snails sometimes live up to 6 years. If possible, of course, to escape from enemies. And there are plenty of them. Beetles, birds, snakes, mice feed on snails. Once, 67 small snails were found in the dove's goiter. In some countries, even people like to eat them - both raw and boiled.
Among the snails there are also giants, but they live in countries with a warm climate. And in Russia, the largest snail has a matchbox-high shell. Its owner is called the "Ussuri live-bearer", this is an aquatic mollusk that lives in the Amur River basin.
With the first frost, the snails begin to prepare for winter. They burrow into the ground or hide under leaves. Then they pull the whole body into the shell and close the entrance to it with a film of mucus, which then hardens. “Having closed the doors”, the snail falls asleep until spring. So they can endure extreme heat and cold. For example, a garden snail can withstand cooling up to 120 degrees. On Earth, there is no such cold at all. When winter comes, the snails freeze into the ice and sleep peacefully.
The viability of the snail is simply amazing. If the conditions are unfavorable for her, she can hibernate for as long as six months. And she is able to change her environment. When, on one of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, the Achatina snail began to eat tea bushes, it was robbed and taken far into the ocean. But the "land" snail swam back. I had to collect it again and now just burn it.
With the end of winter and the beginning of spring, the snails begin to wake up. Emaciated during the winter, they greedily pounce on food. And when the forces are restored, nature tells the snails to take care of procreation.
And yet there are lovers to breed snails at home in an aquarium. Many of those who keep fish simply plant snails on the walls of aquariums. But snails can be bred on their own. Pour sand on the bottom of the aquarium, and dry earth on top. Then put in some moss and a piece of wood so the snails can hide underneath - they love shade. Now you can plant residents. Just remember to cover the top of the aquarium with a sheet of paper - otherwise the snails will spread. And, most importantly, sprinkle the bottom with water more often. And you can feed your wards with leaves or grass. If the aquarium is dark and damp, the snails will feel comfortable.
When the snails take root in the aquarium, you can pamper them with chopped apples - they love them. They also willingly eat carrots and raw peeled potatoes. Just remember to remove any leftover food from the aquarium, otherwise it will spoil.
It is interesting to watch snails, some people are calmed by the sight of slowly crawling snails. Well, then it's better to release the snails. No matter how well you feed them, they live better in the wild than in a glass box.