Facts About
Land Snails
as Pets
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Pet Mollusks - More Interesting Facts about Land Snails
By: Rocky & Bullwinkle (our pet invertebrates)
1. Snails are Gastropods which means "Belly Footed Animal".
There are over five thousand species of mollusks that live
on land and in the sea.
2. Snails melt when you pour salt on them or they encounter
anything with a hint of salt in it. This happens because of
the snail's cells reacting to the salt in an osmotic
process, meaning that water rapidly leaves the cells of the
snail to balance the salt on the snail's body.
3. Snails can retract their tentacles into their body either
one or two at a time. They do this as a defensive measure to
save the retracting tentacle from being touched or hurt.
4. Garden snails will eat vegetables and fruits from
gardens, but also will eat soil and decaying plants and
insects.
5. The fastest snail in this very slow family of mollusks is
the speckled garden snail, which can move up to fifty-five
yards per hour, unlike other yard snails that travel at
speeds of twenty-three inches per hour at the most.
6. Snails hibernate over the winter and live off the fat
they have stored from the spring, summer and fall seasons.
They bury themselves and the slime door they form over their
shell opening hardens into a protective cover with only a
small hole for breathing. Some desert snails have been known
to remain hidden away in their shells for up to three years,
until a wet season makes things better for them.
7. Most land snails have lungs for breathing, but a few
kinds use gills. Conversely, most sea snails use gills, but
many types have lungs, and carry air in their shells.
8. Several types of garden snail are considered a delicacy
in French cooking, and are often eaten on festive occasions.
Because snails eat some foods that are dangerous to humans,
before they can be cooks they are kept in captivity and fed
ground cereals for a number of days to clean out their
digestive systems. Snails for eating are called Escargot.
9. National Escargot day is held on May 24th.
10. Snails are nocturnal animals and come out and hunt their
meals at night. Gardeners sometimes awaken in the morning to
find their strawberry patch empty of strawberries because of
the snails' nocturnal feeding.
11. When most land snails are about three years old they can
lay their small round eggs. You can sometimes find them
under stones, in small clusters of about thirty.
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