A snail is a common name for a gastropod mollusc with a coiled shell.
Close relatives of the snails are the slugs, which are basically snails without shells.
The Burgundy snail was hailed for helping end the Jugurthine War (111-105BC) when a mercenary hunting snails found himself on a hill from which he could secretly survey a fort. General Gaius Marius then attacked and captured it, leading to a Roman victory.
The Romans ate common garden snails as snacks and were responsible for introducing the molluscs to Britain.
Ancient Roman Fulvius Herpinus fed his snails wine and meat before consuming them himself.
The trade in snails for eating boomed in medieval times when monks used them as replacement meat dishes during Lent.
Charles Darwin recorded in his Descent Of Man some evidence of intelligence, communication and homing instinct amongst the snail species.
A "dead" Egyptian snail was put on display in the British Museum in March 1846. The snail spent nearly four years glued to a specimen card before scientists realized it was still alive.
Snails are invertebrates, which are animals with no backbones. The shell on the snail helps protect it, and also reduces the loss of water by evaporation.
A snail's "foot" is a muscle which allows it to move slowly across the ground.
The biggest snail is the African giant snail. Their foot is up to 35 cm long.
The largest recorded specimen of African giant snail was owned by Christopher Hudson of Hove, East Sussex, UK, and was collected in Sierra Leone in June 1976. It measured 39.3 centimetres (15.5 in) from snout to tail when fully extended, with a shell length of 27.3 cm (10.7 in) in December 1978.
Garden Snails have thousands of teeth, which are mounted on their tongue (radula). They are classed as Gastropods meaning, "walking stomach."
Snails’ teeth are the strongest natural material on Earth, able to withstand pressures high enough to turn carbon into diamond.
Snails have blue blood due to the lack of iron. They use copper instead to transport oxygen.
A snail can grow back a new eye if it loses one.
A snail’s venom can act as a pain-killer 1000 times more powerful than Morphine - And it’s not addictive.
Most land snails are herbivorous. They eat vegetables and fruits, such as lettuce, carrots, cucumber and apples. Aquatic snails are usually omnivores or predatory carnivores.
Snails use only two brain cells to make "complex decisions". One cell tells the snail if it's hungry, the other tells the snail if food is around.
Land snails are nocturnal animals and move to food and partners in the late evening or at night. Water snails do not distinguish different daytimes.
A snail can sleep for three years. Desert snails sense when the air is particularly dry, and will burrow underground as a result. They can hibernate there for three to four years until the climate becomes more suitable for them.
Snails, which are hermaphrodites, mate by first stabbing each other with a tiny spike called a love dart, which determines who is more likely to be the 'male' in the exchange (the better stabber). Scaled to human size, the dart would be a 15-inch (38.1 cms) knife.
Some hermaphrodite snails do not need another snail to reproduce, but can make more snails all by themselves.
Each snail produces about thirty eggs and places them underneath a stone for them to hatch.
The snail's foot exudes slime, which eases its movement, leaving a trail.
Snails can crawl up walls and even upside down because of the slime produced by their bodies.
Giving Prozac to a snail renders it unable to stick to surfaces.
The fastest land snail is the Common garden snail (Helix aspera). It can reach speeds up to 0.047 kmh (0.029 mph).
On February 20, 1990, a garden snail named Verne completed a 31-cm (12.2-in) course at West Middle School in Plymouth, Michigan, USA, in a world record 2 min 13 sec at 0.233 cm/sec (0.09 in/sec).
A snail moving at its top speed of two inches a minute would finish a marathon in just over 18 months.
It would take a snail nearly 4,575 years to circle the Earth.
Approximately one billion snails are served in restaurants annually.
The French eat 25,000 tons of snails a year, equivalent to 700 million individual snails. Roman - or Burgundy- snails are among the most popular.
After the snails are cooked, the French make a dish called Escargot. They usually boil them in salt water, and add a garlic sauce.
There are nearly 200 snail farms in France but they still import 85 per cent of the snails they eat.
In 1928 a Mrs Donoghue was drinking a ginger beer in the Wellmeadow café in Paisley, Scotland. She found the decomposed remains of a snail in her drink. Mrs Donaghue took the company to court, and won the case, This laid the foundation of the modern law of negligence, establishing general principles of the duty of care.
There are more than 43,000 known species of snails all over the world.
The channeled basket snail can use its muscular foot to catapult itself through the air.
The slipper-shelled snail starts life as a male and gradually turns female as it grows up.
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| Pixiebay |
Close relatives of the snails are the slugs, which are basically snails without shells.
SNAILS IN HISTORY
The Burgundy snail was hailed for helping end the Jugurthine War (111-105BC) when a mercenary hunting snails found himself on a hill from which he could secretly survey a fort. General Gaius Marius then attacked and captured it, leading to a Roman victory.
The Romans ate common garden snails as snacks and were responsible for introducing the molluscs to Britain.
Ancient Roman Fulvius Herpinus fed his snails wine and meat before consuming them himself.
The trade in snails for eating boomed in medieval times when monks used them as replacement meat dishes during Lent.
Charles Darwin recorded in his Descent Of Man some evidence of intelligence, communication and homing instinct amongst the snail species.
A "dead" Egyptian snail was put on display in the British Museum in March 1846. The snail spent nearly four years glued to a specimen card before scientists realized it was still alive.
ANATOMY
Snails are invertebrates, which are animals with no backbones. The shell on the snail helps protect it, and also reduces the loss of water by evaporation.
 |
| Pixiebay |
A snail's "foot" is a muscle which allows it to move slowly across the ground.
The biggest snail is the African giant snail. Their foot is up to 35 cm long.
The largest recorded specimen of African giant snail was owned by Christopher Hudson of Hove, East Sussex, UK, and was collected in Sierra Leone in June 1976. It measured 39.3 centimetres (15.5 in) from snout to tail when fully extended, with a shell length of 27.3 cm (10.7 in) in December 1978.
Garden Snails have thousands of teeth, which are mounted on their tongue (radula). They are classed as Gastropods meaning, "walking stomach."
Snails’ teeth are the strongest natural material on Earth, able to withstand pressures high enough to turn carbon into diamond.
Snails have blue blood due to the lack of iron. They use copper instead to transport oxygen.
A snail can grow back a new eye if it loses one.
A snail’s venom can act as a pain-killer 1000 times more powerful than Morphine - And it’s not addictive.
BEHAVIOR
Most land snails are herbivorous. They eat vegetables and fruits, such as lettuce, carrots, cucumber and apples. Aquatic snails are usually omnivores or predatory carnivores.
 |
| Pixiebay |
Snails use only two brain cells to make "complex decisions". One cell tells the snail if it's hungry, the other tells the snail if food is around.
Land snails are nocturnal animals and move to food and partners in the late evening or at night. Water snails do not distinguish different daytimes.
A snail can sleep for three years. Desert snails sense when the air is particularly dry, and will burrow underground as a result. They can hibernate there for three to four years until the climate becomes more suitable for them.
Snails, which are hermaphrodites, mate by first stabbing each other with a tiny spike called a love dart, which determines who is more likely to be the 'male' in the exchange (the better stabber). Scaled to human size, the dart would be a 15-inch (38.1 cms) knife.
Some hermaphrodite snails do not need another snail to reproduce, but can make more snails all by themselves.
Each snail produces about thirty eggs and places them underneath a stone for them to hatch.
MOVEMENT
The snail's foot exudes slime, which eases its movement, leaving a trail.
Snails can crawl up walls and even upside down because of the slime produced by their bodies.
Giving Prozac to a snail renders it unable to stick to surfaces.
The fastest land snail is the Common garden snail (Helix aspera). It can reach speeds up to 0.047 kmh (0.029 mph).
On February 20, 1990, a garden snail named Verne completed a 31-cm (12.2-in) course at West Middle School in Plymouth, Michigan, USA, in a world record 2 min 13 sec at 0.233 cm/sec (0.09 in/sec).
A snail moving at its top speed of two inches a minute would finish a marathon in just over 18 months.
 |
| Pixiebay |
It would take a snail nearly 4,575 years to circle the Earth.
SNAILS AS FOOD
Approximately one billion snails are served in restaurants annually.
The French eat 25,000 tons of snails a year, equivalent to 700 million individual snails. Roman - or Burgundy- snails are among the most popular.
 |
| French cooked snails |
After the snails are cooked, the French make a dish called Escargot. They usually boil them in salt water, and add a garlic sauce.
There are nearly 200 snail farms in France but they still import 85 per cent of the snails they eat.
In 1928 a Mrs Donoghue was drinking a ginger beer in the Wellmeadow café in Paisley, Scotland. She found the decomposed remains of a snail in her drink. Mrs Donaghue took the company to court, and won the case, This laid the foundation of the modern law of negligence, establishing general principles of the duty of care.
UNUSUAL SNAILS
There are more than 43,000 known species of snails all over the world.
The channeled basket snail can use its muscular foot to catapult itself through the air.
The slipper-shelled snail starts life as a male and gradually turns female as it grows up.
The scaly-foot gastropod is a species of deep-sea snail that lives in hydrothermal vents 1.5 miles (2.4 kms) underwater with crushing pressures and temperatures up to 750 degrees Fahrenheit (399 celsius). It is the only known living animal that uses iron sulfides in its skeleton.
The scaly-foot gastropod does not require consumption of food as it lives on the energy the bacteria in its gland produces.
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| The geography cone |
The Bermuda Land Snail was thought to have gone extinct in the 1970s. In 2014, many were rediscovered in a Hamilton city alleyway. The snails had colonized the alley early on and the surrounding city shielded them from the threats that wiped out the rest of the species.
Sources Daily Mail, Ezinarticles
Snail is a small insect. thats loves to sleep for longer times.
ReplyDeleteDo snails sleep at night
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