Snails!

Today while we were delivering food for the Food Bank, we saw some common garden snails. They were crawling all over the walls in the garden, and sliming down the pathway. They were eating the grass in the planters, too. They are light brown on top, and their shells are mottled brown, black, and yellow. They have tannish undersides, and four tentacles, two of which (the longer, top ones) have eyes. These eyes however, cannot see actual images, just changes in lightness and darkness. They are all sensitive to touch. Humidity is important to snails. If they get too dry, they start to aestivate.(For the young ones, humidity means temperature(hot and cold), and water in the air. To aestivate means the snail draws itself into the shell, in order to withstand unfavorable conditions. If you still don't understand, ask your parent.)

Anyway, back to the original subject, now an answer to that age old question: Can snails come out of their shells? The answer is yes. If you plan on keeping snails (as I'm sure you will by the end of this blog), you will notice that after you wash the snails( you must do this weekly), they will sometimes come out of their shells and slime around. This will surely be an interesting time to observe them. Snails move by coating their foot (a muscle-like appendage on their belly) with mucus(snot). The snails need to live in a humid environment, however, if the environment is too humid, then mold will grow and kill the snails. They also need calcium of some sort, and a piece of shell from the beach will suffice their needs. Calcium is essential to shell growth. Keep them in a gallon jar (we are using an old pickle jar) with some cheesecloth over the top(secure with rubber bands) .Layer some wet paper towels over the bottom of the jar. The snails will eat this, so you don't need to give them anything more, although if you want, you can give them a treat such as lettuce, carrots, and occasionally apples as long as you clean the jar afterwards. Most land and water snails have a structure in their mouths called a radula. The radula works like lots of little teeth to scrape away little bits of the food. There now you have something to do with the "common garden pest" the snail. Hope you enjoyed this.

The Taxonomy of the common garden snail:
Phylum: Mollusca(soft-bodied marine animals)
Class: Gastropod(snails, slugs, and limpets)
Subclass: Pulmonata(slugs and most land snails. Mantle cavity has become a lung.Hermaphroditic)
Order: Stylomattophora(two pairs of tentacles, with eyes on top of the second pair)
info for this post is from The Big Book of Nature Projects, by: The Children's School of Science

Some snail links:
Snail facts lots of fun stuff here for little kids
brown garden snail this site describes how the snail got to America and all over the world, and is now considered a pest in California.
garden safari This site has cool pics of snail eggs.
eye to eye with garden snails experiments and teacher notes
BBC snails basic info, good pics
and last but not least, eating your garden snails!

Signed,
The Boy