Bobana's blog!

hey there! here's where I'll be jotting down random thoughts and fun things i suppose...

the older ones are at the bottom :o

10/29/24

topic: snails are actually so cool its unreal

I FREAKING LOVE SNAILS. they are so epic and underappreciated. when i was little i was one of those kids who would go outside after it rained and pick up the snails, worms, and slugs from the sidewalk and put them back in the grass, and methinks that's where my love for them began...

keep in mind all info in this entry applies to only some types of snail. there are many many many different variants all with different attributes, so there will be exceptions to almost all of these phenomena. i'm mostly referring to land snails because they're what i know most about, as well.

regular garden snails have around 14,000 teeth, although teeth maybe isn't the correct word for them...? they have a retractable tongue called a radula that they use to scrape food, which has tons of tiny protrusions to aid in this process. the radular teeth go in a <<< pattern, with a central tooth along with some lateral and marginal teeth on each side, symmetrically. this is caculated in a radular formula which i will not be going into because it's math (ew).

the body consists of one foot which secretes mucus to propel itself and the shell, which holds all of the guts and stuff. this is why you should never pick up a snail by its shell. the shell is its armor and protects all of the important stuff, much like the ribcage in humans. the shell is also NOT REMOVABLE!!!! if i have to hear the phrase "come out of your shell" one more time in reference to snails i am going to hurt somebody. they are born with the shell on (it's really cute cause it's translucent when they're babies :3) and often die if it cracks!!!!! if you are thinking of keeping a snail as a pet, keep in mind that having elevated spaces in their terrarium where they could fall onto something hard is dangerous if their shell is in a fragile state. to keep it strong, you should provide them with a cuttlebone for them to scrape the calcium off of!!! but yeah.... snails never leave their shells! that is part of their body! the phrase can also refer to hermit crabs, who DO leave their shells, although they find new ones because that's like...their house, i think. but more often than not i see it referencing snails and that makes me feel like biting people. to reiterate, when picking up a snail, you should let them climb onto your hand like that one meme format. don't pick them up by the shell.

during the mating process, snails shoot "love darts" into each other, which historians think *may* have inspired the eros/cupid arrow stories in greek and roman mythology!! love darting is a form of sexual selection that occurs in the courtship period of reproduction, and occurs in hermaphroditic (posessing both male and female reproductive organs) snails. a love dart is very small, although proportianally the length of an arm to a snail though varying in size, and is made up of calcium. during the mating process, both snails will attempt to lodge one or more darts (which are produced in the dart sac) into the other. they aren't literally fired through the air, but instead transferred while both snails are in contact with each other. love darting is not a form of sperm transfer, but instead part of the courtship. likelyhood of two snails reproducing often depends on whether they have been able to dart each other.

snails have two eye stalks which allow them to see further and with more flexibility.

anyways, that's it! because i'm sharing facts here, feel free to correct me in my guestbook if you see anything wrong <3