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26/02/16 4:32 pm
How Snails Live?
What Do Snails Look Like?
Snails come in many shapes and sizes.
They can be as small as pinheads or as big as footballs.
Land snails (main photograph) can grow quite large.
The periwinkle snail (inset photograph) is a small snail.
Where Do Snails Live?
Look at these photographs.
Where do you think snails live?
Do snails live ...
in cities? in deserts? in trees? in water?
Snails live in most places in the world.
Snails are found in big cities, in deserts, in trees, and in water.
A garden snail A desert snail A tree snail A sea snail
Some snails live in towns and cities. The snail's body needs to be kept cool and damp, so the"
snail is usually found in dar, damp places, clinging to leaves or hiding near rocks.
If you look carefully, you can often find a group of snails hidden or camouflaged, in the leaves or"
soil.
The brown color of the garden snail's shell helps it hide from its enemies.
Most snails live in the water.
Scientists believe that millions of years ago, all snails lived under the water.
Freshwater snails live in lakes, ponds and rivers.
A freshwater snail
Some snails live in the sea.
There are many different types of sea snails.
Some snails, such as the periwinkle, live in little rock pools.
When the tide goes out, you can often see snails clinging onto rocks or seaweed.
Other snails, such as the abalone and the queen conch, live in deeper water.
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The queen conch is one of the largest sea snails in the world. It is about the size of a football.
What Do Snails Eat?
Different snails eat different things.
Some snails eat plants or seaweed.
Scientists call animals that eat plants herbivores.
Some snails eat shellfish.
Some snails even eat other snails!
Scientists call animals that eat other animals carnivores.
A Triton trumpet snail attacks a starfish.
Most land snails eat plants.
They like to eat lots of different sorts of leaves and vegetables.
The land snail usually feeds at night.
This keeps the snail cool, and stops its soft, wet body from drying out.
During the day, the snail hides from many of its enemies.
It also hides from the sun.
The Roman snail eats leaves and plants.
Snails have a very unusual way of eating.
A snail has thousands and thousands of tiny, sharp teeth on its tongue.
The snail rubs its tongue against its food and scrapes off little pieces of the plant.
Its tongue works a bit like a cheese grater.
An enlarged photograph showing the tongue of a snail covered with sharp teeth.
Snails have been known to use their sharp teeth to gnaw their way out of wooden boxes.
Some sea snails, such as the moon snail, use their tongues like a drill to bore through the
shells of other shellfish so they can feed on the meat inside.
The cone snail eats fish and worms. It stabs its prey with a sharp spear, which is poisonous.
The cone snail in the photograph above is feeding.
Mouths and Noses
Do snails have mouths and noses?
A snail doesn't have a nose.
Instead it has a special hole under its shell that opens and closes as the snail breathes. The
snail's mouth is a tiny hole that is found just under its feelers.
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The breathing hole of a snail is just under its shell.
How do snails that live in the water breath?
Some pond snails have lungs and come to the top of the water to breathe air.
Most snails that live in the sea have gills and breathe a little like fish.
Some snails, like the partridge tun, use gills and a long tube to breathe.
Tentacles
A snail has feelers, or tentacles, on its head. As the snail sides along, it uses its tentacles to
touch, smell, and taste. The tentacles help the snail to find food and feel objects and its path.
Garden snails have four tentacles.
If a snail is frightened, it can hide from its enemies by going inside its shell.
The snail will pull its tentacles into its body by turning them inside out, like the fingers of the
glove. It will then pull the rest of its body into the shell.
In the photographs above, the snail is going inside its shell.
Eyes
Do snails have eyes?
Most snails have eyes.
The two black dots on the end of the long tentacles are the snail’s eyes.
Land snails have their eyes on the ends of their tentacles.
Snails cannot see very well.
They can only see light and dark.
Snails that live in dark caves or deep under the sea may have no eyes at all!
Many freshwater snails and sea snails have their eyes in different places.
Some have eyes that are just under their tentacles.
Others may have their eyes on the ends of two stalks.
Can you see one of the eyes of this great pond snail?
The black dot under the tentacle is the eye.
How Do Snails Move?
Have you ever watched a snail move?
A snail leaves behind a silvery trail as it moves. The silvery trail is slime.
The slime helps the snail slide along.
A snail and its slime trail
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Experiment
1. Gently pick up a snail and put it on a piece of glass.
2. Lift up the glass so that you can watch the snail from underneath as it moves. The snail has
a long, flat foot to help it move. Like worms, snails don't have any bones. The snail uses the
muscles in its foot to slide along its slimy track. It you look carefully at a moving snail, you can
see its muscles moving in waves.
3. Remember to put the snail back where you found it.
Fascinating Snail Facts
Most snails are not very big, but they are very strong for their size.
Some snails can carry something that is twelve times their own weight.
A snail's strong muscles help it burrow under things.
A snail may move very slowly, but it is very powerful. Some snails could pull things that are 200
times their weight.
That would be a bit like a person trying to pull two big trucks along the road!
Snails are related to squid, oysters, and clams.
They all belong to a large group of animals called molluscs.
Molluscs are animals that have no inner skeleton.
They have soft bodies, and most have a hard shell on the outside.
Squid are molluscs-like snails. Squid have soft bodies, but they do not have a hard shell.
Most snail shells spiral in a clockwise direction. The whorls spiral to the right.
These shells are called right-handed or dextral shells.
Some shells are left-handed!
These shells spiral in an anti-clockwise direction. They are called sinistral shells.
Scientist don't know why most shells are right-handed but some are left-handed.
Most garden snail shells spiral to the right.
Snails are interesting animals to study because they are found in so many different places, and
because they live in so many different ways.
So remember to keep a look out for snails hidden in dark, damp places in your garden.
You will find many exciting and interesting things happening in the life of the snail.
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