How Does The Snail'S House Give It Safety And Protection

Contents

- 0.0.1 How does the snail’s house give it safely and protection?

1 How does the snail react to outside danger?
2 What happens if you accidentally crush a snail?
3 How do snails fall in love?
4 Is it okay to eat snails?
5 How do snails support and protect themselves without a skeleton?

How does the snail’s house give it safely and protection?

Answer: Snails shell is hard and therefore it can protect itself mark me as brainliest.

How does the snail react to outside danger?

Snails usually have a spiral-shaped shell which is wound around a spindle. This is the snail shell which they retract their soft bodies into when there is danger.

What is the home of a snail called?

What is a Snail’s Habitat? – A snail’s habitat is anywhere where snails live and thrive, Snails have made their habitats almost everywhere in the world, including your own garden. Snails have made their habitat all over the world, including the Arctic and Antarctic oceans! They adapt to their environment, so there are lots of different types of snails with different habitats.

What does the snail do in the prospect of danger?

Answer: the snail hides into his own shell securely.

What is a snail’s form of protection?

Why Do Snails Have Shells? – Snails have shells for a mixture of reasons. Firstly, shells offer protection from predatory animal attacks. It also prevents their soft, moist organs inside the humped visceral mass from becoming damaged or drying out. And it provides a place for the snail to store calcium and other proteins and compounds.

Marine snails also use their shells to help protect them against waves, tidal debris, and rough sands.
Other animals (especially predators of snails) have a hard skeleton with ribs present, or a backbone-oriented structure, which offers speed, agility, and a number of other benefits when faced with a predator.

Snails have none of those things. Instead, they have a shell. We’ve got to let them have something, right?

What does a snail’s shell protect from?

“Snail shell” redirects here. For the cave in Tennessee, see Snail Shell Cave, For the They Might Be Giants song, see John Henry (album), Shells of two different species of sea snail: on the left is the normally sinistral (left-handed) shell of Neptunea angulata, on the right is the normally dextral (right-handed) shell of Neptunea despecta The shell of a large land snail (probably Helix pomatia ) with parts broken off to show the interior structure.1 – umbilicus 2 – columellar plait 3 – aperture 4 – columella 5 – suture 6 – body whorl 7 – apex Four views of a shell of Arianta arbustorum : Apertural view (top left), lateral view (top right), apical view (bottom left), and umbilical view (bottom right). The gastropod shell is part of the body of a gastropod or snail, a kind of mollusc, The shell is an exoskeleton, which protects from predators, mechanical damage, and dehydration, but also serves for muscle attachment and calcium storage.

Some gastropods appear shell-less ( slugs ) but may have a remnant within the mantle, or in some cases the shell is reduced such that the body cannot be retracted within it ( semi-slug ). Some snails also possess an operculum that seals the opening of the shell, known as the aperture, which provides further protection.

The study of mollusc shells is known as conchology, The biological study of gastropods, and other molluscs in general, is malacology, Shell morphology terms vary by species group.

Do snails experience pain?

Snails may have opioid responses and mussels release morphine when confronted with noxious stimuli. Both reactions suggest that these animals do, in fact, feel pain. While mollusks don’t have brains per se, they do exhibit some nervous system centralization. They have several pairs of ganglia connected to a nerve cord.

What happens if you accidentally crush a snail?

Rescuing Snails that have been stepped on / Snail Problems Problems From time to time you may experience problems with your snails. Very little is known about what these illnesses are, what causes them, and even less is known about treatments. Unfortunately it seems more time is spent on increasingly more ingenious ways to kill them.

Because of this, the following information is a mix of whatever research is possible and available, theory and hypothesis, logical thinking and the result of various discussions with a large group of snail owners. It is with the help of the community at large, that these problems can at least be documented.

Where possible I have tried to link to example incidents. Hopefully, we can find some effective solutions to the majority of these problems but for now I’m afraid you’ll have to be content with various suggestions and discussion. No doubt if you are reading this page you have either accidently stepped on a snail or have found one that has been partly crushed or cracked but not killed.

Snails are very resilient creatures and can recover from some pretty bad breaks but it is hard to know which will survive and which won’t.
If the shell is cracked or chipped or there is a hole, but the overall integrity of the shell is reasonable, the snail will probably recover.
If the shell has split into pieces but still covers the body it may even survive that.

Minor body damage can be healed also. However, snails that look really mangled such as the body has been crushed badly or the internal organs are sticking out of gaping cracks in the shell etc., I euthanase them by stamping on them. It sounds horrible but it is far better than taking hours to dry out and die from dessication and in my experience, snails that have been horribly mangled don’t survive.

If you are leaving them outside, find a place where they can hide and won’t dry out, so they’re not an easy target, especially since movement will be painful.
They’ll hide and draw on their store of calcium and time will tell.
If you wish to keep the injured snails read over the comprehensive which will explain its long-term needs.

On the other hand if you simply wish to keep the snail until it recovers do the following: I usually spray the snail gently with water (tepid) to properly see what damage has occured. I then remove any bits of shell that have broken free and are sticking out.

Very carefully clean the snail and the damaged areas under a very gently flowing tap (tepid) or by using a spray bottle.
Pop the snail in a tupperware tub without soil but with something to hide under, leaves, moss etc.
Punch some holes in the lid, but not so many that it isn’t humid.
We’re aiming for what may otherwise be considered excessive humidity because we don’t want the exposed parts to dry out.

You can supply milk powder or cuttlefish for extra calcium but they probably won’t touch it for a few days. You will see a papery covering form which will harden and hopefully start to repair. You can feed most fruit and vegetables but don’t expect them to eat it until the repair has begun.

You can chart their progress by how much they eat. When a snail is injured or unwell they tend not to eat, so if they are begining to eat more and more the chances for their recovery are very good. This is the method I use and then usually 7-14 days later, when I am happy they are happy I release them.

: Rescuing Snails that have been stepped on / Snail Problems

Does holding a snail hurt it?

Warning – Never pick up a snail by its shell, as this can damage the muscle that attaches the body to the shell. If this muscle, called the mantle, is damaged, death can result.

Can Muslims eat snails?

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — In the cold days of winter, residents of some Palestinian villages in the West Bank go out to collect land snails, which they will cook into a favorite winter meal, Although the dish is widely associated with French cuisine, it has been passed from generation to generation in Palestine.

Many historical sources suggest the dish originated from the countries of the Maghreb, specifically Morocco and Algeria, where it is known as Babbouche,
It can also be found in Lebanese cuisine,
Antoine Issa, 69, is a Palestinian resident of the village of Aboud, west of Ramallah.
The village has a mixed population of Muslims and Christians, mostly Eastern Orthodox.

Issa told Al-Monitor the story of the meal he prepares every year as part of the rituals of the winter season. His entire family gathers to feast on the different dishes he makes with the snails in different herbs and sauces. “When rain showers start in the winter, we rush to the rocky lands west of the village to collect land snails.

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We force them out of their hideouts between the rocks,” he said. “I would collect thousands of them in the past years during the winter season, but in the last three years, the numbers of snails dropped in the village as a large number of residents started collecting and eating them.” He said that young people out of work and in need of money have discovered the value of the snails.

“They are collecting the snails and selling them in other Palestinian cities in the West Bank. The price of 100 snails ranges between 20-25 shekels,” Once gathered, the snails are placed in wooden boxes where they are fed cucumbers or lettuce to make them meatier and tastier.

Issa explained the cooking process, “Around 400 to 500 snails are placed in a large pot and covered with boiling water. We cook them for an hour, then add spices, salt, chopped onions, lemons and some wild herbs. The dish is best served hot.” This Palestinian traditional dish has surged in popularity in recent years and is served seasonally in some Palestinian restaurants.

Thaer Shaheen, the chef at Darna Restaurant in Ramallah, told Al-Monitor that more people are ordering snails these days. Shaheen said that the restaurant offers various snail-based dishes. “Some want to eat it directly after being immersed in hot water, and some like to eat it after mixing it with fried tomatoes.

Others prefer it with spinach. In the French cuisine, snails are first marinated in a pan with some herbs, spices and butter, and then placed in the oven to reheat,” he said. However, the land snail population has been declining in some Palestinian villages, particularly near Ramallah. The Aboud village council appealed to its residents to cut back on snail collection to allow them to reproduce.

“We cannot prevent citizens from collecting snails. There are no laws against it,” Hanna Khoury, a member of the Aboud village council, told Al-Monitor, “Also, there is an increasing demand for this dish by residents. More than half of the 2,200 population of Aboud village eats snails, not to mention the residents of other villages, specifically in Tulkarm in the northern West Bank,” The nutritional and health benefits of this meal are key factors in its popularity.

Isra Sidr, a nutrition specialist at Shoroq Clinic in Ramallah, noted that snails are a good source of protein. Sidr explained that nutritionists recommend snails as part of a healthy diet. “They are low fat and rich in iron. Snails are also good to fight colds and flu. However, a person should not eat more than 200 grams in one sitting,” Sidr said.

Though both Muslims and Christians eat snails, they are more popular among Christians, as land snails come under the rule against eating insects in some Islamic sects. The deputy head of the Fatwa division at the Palestine Scholars Association in Gaza, Mohammad Alloush, told Al-Monitor that scholars hold diverging opinions on eating l snails.

“For the majority of scholars, it is forbidden to eat it, as it is an insect. But, the Maliki school of fiqh permits it, just like locusts,” Alloush explained that the prohibition is partly due to the difficultly of slaughtering snails under the rules of Sharia. “Eating a wild snail for a therapeutic purpose is admitted as halal among Muslim scholars,” he said.

“Meanwhile, it is permissible to eat sea snails because under Islam everything caught from the sea is permissible.”

How long a snail can sleep?

Can Certain Snails Really Sleep for 3 Years? At first glance, you may not assume that land snails live very fascinating lives. However, these gastropods live quite unique lifestyles. These animals are hermaphrodites, which means they have both male and female reproductive organs.

They have no sense of hearing, and salt is potentially toxic for them.
However, one of the most interesting aspects of their life is how they sleep.
Exactly, how long can certain snails sleep for? You may be surprised by the answer.
How Long Can Snails Sleep? Certain land snails can sleep for up to three years in hibernation or estivation.

Yes, it’s true! Although this extended nap may sound appealing at first, it is actually caused by less-than-ideal conditions. Why Do Snails Sleep So Long? Snails need moisture to survive; so if the weather is not cooperating, they can actually sleep up to three years.

It has been reported that depending on geography, snails can shift into hibernation (which occurs in the winter), or estivation (also known as ‘summer sleep’), helping to escape warm climates. During this time, the snails will secrete mucus over their bodies to protect themselves from the dry, hot weather.

As glamorous as it may sound, snails don’t always sleep for three years in their own mucus. When the weather is just right, snails do tend to follow a pretty regular sleeping schedule. Does A Snails Sleep Schedule Differ From Humans? Unlike humans, snails don’t abide by the rules of night and day.

Generally, snails will sleep on and off in between periods of 13 to 15 hours. Afterwards, they experience a sudden jolt of energy for the next 30 hours, where they get all their snail chores done! How Can You Tell If a Snail Is Asleep? It can be pretty tough to determine whether or not a snail is sleeping, considering they don’t show any obvious signs such as having their eyes closed or snoring.

However, there are still a few simple ways that can help you tell whether or not a snail is sleeping:

The shell may hang away from their body slightly Relaxed foot Tentacles appear withdrawn a little

It may be easy to assume that the gastropod is dead, but don’t jump to conclusions when you see an immobile snail in the garden — it may just be taking a power nap. Disclaimer: Not intended to be a substitute for professional veterinarian advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

What is the purpose of a snail?

Slugs and snails are very important. They provide food for all sorts of mammals, birds, slow worms, earthworms, insects and they are part of the natural balance. Upset that balance by removing them and we can do a lot of harm. Thrushes in particular thrive on them!

What if I eat a snail?

Nutritional Info – from the WebMD Ingredients Guide Serving Size 2 Ounce-weight (56.7 g) Calories 51 % Daily Value* Total Carbohydrate 1 g 0% *Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

Vitamin C 0% Iron 11% Vitamin B6 0% Magnesium 0% Calcium 0% Vitamin D 0% Cobalamin 0% Vitamin A 1%

You may think of snails only as small mollusks that wreak havoc in your garden or crawl around on the sidewalk after rain. But in many parts of the world, including France, Germany, and Portugal, snails are actually a delicacy. They can be enjoyed cooked into a buttery hors d’oeuvre called escargot or fried in an Indian dish called sate kakul.

Eating a snail might sound unpleasant to you, but if you can get past any mental blocks you have about eating them, their taste is uniquely supple.
They have a meaty texture but are moist inside and take on the flavor of whatever sauce they’re cooked in.
With escargot, they tend to be cooked in a buttery garlic sauce, making them savory and delectable.

You can find escargot or other snail dishes served at various restaurants or as an appetizer at a fancy party. Seafood shops also sell them. However, you can’t buy them in every grocery store. But behind that garlicky goodness, is there any nutritional substance? Let’s take a look at the potential health benefits and risk factors to eating snails so that you can make an informed decision about whether to add this food to your diet.

Calories: 102Fat: 2 grams Cholesterol : 57 milligrams Sodium : 79 milligramsCarbohydrates: 2 grams Protein : 18 grams

The protein content of snails is similar to the protein found in pork and beef, but snails come with a much lower fat content. In addition to containing significant sources of protein and low amounts of fat, snails are also good sources of iron, calcium, Vitamin A, and a number of other minerals.

Vitamin A helps your immune system fight off diseases and strengthens your eyes.
It also helps cells in your body grow.
Calcium helps your body’s bones stay strong and diminish risk of developing bone-related problems such as osteoporosis,
Iron helps your red blood cells move oxygen to all parts of your body, as well as keeps your hair, nails, and skin healthy.

In medieval times, snails were thought to cure everything from a common cough to tuberculosis, Today, they’re enjoyed more as a tasty appetizer than for any other reason. However, there are still a number of health benefits associated with eating snails.

Improve Anemia Iron-deficient anemia can cause symptoms that include fatigue, weakness, pale skin, chest pain, headache, dizziness, and shortness of breath.
Fortunately, eating snails may help relieve some of these symptoms by treating the underlying cause.
Snails are an excellent source of iron, with one serving of snails containing 22% of your recommended daily allowance of iron.

Improve Heart Health Fish are normally noted for their supply of Omega-3 fatty acids, but snails are a good source of them too. Omega-3s have been shown to improve heart health and reduce the risk of dying of heart disease. They also may help lower your blood pressure, reduce blood clotting, and keep your heartbeat steady.

One of the biggest risks to eating snails comes not from the snails themselves but from how you prepare them.
Heart Problems One of the biggest benefits of snails is that they are a low-fat protein source, but cooking them in buttery sauces adds that fat back in.
Some fats are stored in the arteries.
These thin tubes carry oxygen-rich blood throughout your body.

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Over time, they can become clogged if too much fat or other substances build. A blocked artery can lead to a heart attack or stroke, Therefore, eating fat-rich sauces along with snails reintroduces risk of developing heart disease or other health problems later in life.

HeadachesStiffness Fever Nausea Vomiting

Luckily, this infection can be prevented as long as you cook snails thoroughly before eating them.

How do snails fall in love?

Failed to save article – Please try again This article is more than 6 years old. The recent heavy rains in California have been good for the drought. But it’s not just people who are celebrating. Brown garden snails, which originated in the Mediterranean where the climate resembles much of California’s, thrive in moist places.

If it’s too cold or too dry, they hunker down in their shells and wait for a wet spell.
After the rain, when everything’s nice and damp, like it is now, snails re-emerge.
That’s when love is in the air.
But the sex life of these common snails is anything but ordinary.
First, they’re hermaphrodites, fitted with both male and female reproductive plumbing, and can mate with any member of their species they want.

Sounds easy, but the battle of the sexes is alive and well in gastropods. Snails find reproductive partners by following their slime trails. (Elliott Kennerson / KQED) “The fundamental problem for snails, who are both male and female at the same time, is how you optimize both your male function and your female function,” said Barry Roth, a former collections manager at the California Academy of Sciences who’s now an independent snail and slug consultant in San Francisco.

In nature, fatherhood is easier.
It’s the quickest, cheapest way to pass on your genes.
Motherhood requires a much greater investment of time, energy, and resources.
Courtship is how they sort that out,” Roth said.
Who’s going to be male? Who’s going to be female? Or is it going to be shared?” With garden snails, “courtship” is somewhat euphemistic.

Their idea of foreplay is to stab each other with a tiny spike called a love dart. Here’s the play-by-play. Snails find mates using taste and smell. By waving their upper tentacles in the air—smelling—and tapping their lower ones on the ground—tasting—they pick up on the gooey trails of potential partners. Snails spend hours smelling and tasting a potential mate. (Elliott Kennerson / KQED) When snails meet, the tasting and smelling continue, this time with full-body contact, sometimes for hours. Call it heavy petting or extreme vetting, snails take the time to get to know their partners.

Everything in this courtship is wine and roses at first—then comes the love dart. Technically called a gypsobelum, the love dart is a nail-clipping-sized needle that stays hidden in an internal sac until about half an hour before copulation begins, when the sac inverts and it’s fired, or stabbed, indiscriminately into the partner’s body.

“Being stabbed by the male dart makes you more of a female-oriented partner in that courtship,” said Roth. Garden snails stab each other with “love darts” before copulation. (Koene & Schulenburg 2005 BMC Evol. Biol.) The love dart is the snails’ tool for maximizing their male side. It injects hormones to prevent the other snail’s body from killing newly introduced sperm once copulation begins.

When snails copulate, two penises enter two vaginal tracts. Both snails in a pairing transfer sperm, but whichever snail got in the best shot with the dart has a better chance of ultimately fertilizing eggs. In some species, only one snail fires a love dart, but in others, like the garden snail, both do.

“The whole reproductive system is a quite a maze,” said Joris Koene, a gastropod researcher at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. When snails copulate, two penises enter two vaginas, and they exchange sperm. (Elliott Kennerson / KQED) You can spot love darts sticking out of snails in mid-courtship, and even find them abandoned in slime puddles where mating has been happening. Scale it up to human size and the love dart would be the equivalent of a 15-inch knife, according to Koene. To film snails copulating, the Deep Look team built a tabletop snail love garden. (Jen Brady / KQED)

Is it okay to eat snails?

Can I Eat the Snails from My Garden? You can, and I have. Other than size, they’re not much different than the escargot you’d find in a French restaurant. Years ago, I ran a gardening business in the seaside town of Santa Cruz, California. The cool, foggy coastal environment was an ideal snail habitat.

It was not uncommon to plant, say, a rosebush and come back the next morning to find dozens of snails devouring every leaf.
One day, my friend Tim shared a surprising fact: The common brown garden snail is actually an invasive species brought over by French chefs.
This may be more urban myth than fact, but a little Googling revealed that these garden enemies are indeed edible.

It took us about five minutes to gather enough for a meal, and I soon enjoyed my first ever escargot, organically grown and garden fresh. was recently established on Long Island, but most French chefs on this side of the pond still resort to importing their snails.

Chefs favor larger, domesticated snails for escargot, but the half-dollar-size specimens found in any backyard or vacant lot taste just as good. Here’s what you need to know. Safety While certain marine snails are among the most toxic creatures on the planet, terrestrial snails are generally safe to eat.

Make sure to harvest them from vegetation that has not been treated with herbicides or pesticides. Most importantly, cook them — some snails carry a dangerous parasite called rat lungworm, but as long as you heat them to at least 165°F for several minutes, you’ll be safe.

A surprising number of children have ended up in the hospital after being dared to eat raw snails. Fattening Them Up Escargot tastes much better if the snails feed on human food for three or four days before consuming them. Collect them in a clean plastic bucket fitted with a screen lid for ventilation.

Keep them in a cool, shady location. Add some raw vegetables or uncooked grains and let them graze. Sprinkle a few drops of water into the enclosure each day to keep them moist. Rinse the snails thoroughly in clean running water and hang them in a mesh bag (out of the sun) for 24 to 48 hours without food — this will allow their digestive systems to empty out.

Remove any dead snails before cooking. In the Kitchen Add the snails to a pot of boiling water and cook them for several minutes to loosen the flesh from the shells. Rinse them in cool water and prick out the meat with the tip of a knife. To remove the last of the slime, rinse the snails in a bowl of vinegar water (1/2 cup of vinegar per gallon of water).

Repeat this process several times with fresh water and vinegar until the mucus is gone. They are now ready to become escargot — the classic recipe is to simply sauté them in garlic, butter and a dash of white wine. : Can I Eat the Snails from My Garden?

How do snails support and protect themselves without a skeleton?

Most slugs have no skeleton at all, but snails have spiral-shaped shells on their backs, in which they can hide for protection. Slugs and snails belong to a larger group called mollusks, which also includes shellfish, octopuses, and squid. Almost all snail shells spiral in a clockwise direction.

How do mystery snails protect themselves?

The mystery snail’s large size and hard operculum (a trap door cover which protects the soft flesh inside ), and their thick hard shell make them less edible by predators such as rusty crayfish.

How do tortoises and snails protect themselves from danger?

Hard outer shell is a protective adaptation in turtles and snails. They hide inside the hard outer shell to protect themselves from predators.

How does a snails shell help it survive?

All mollusks build their own shells. Illustration by Lisa Ballard Q: How do snails get their shells? —Peter Ramirez | Gladstone, Oregon All mollusks build their own shells, whether they live in water or on land. Creatures like snails, clams, oysters and mussels use an organ called a mantle to secrete layers of calcium carbonate, which crystallize and harden.

Mollusks have a physical bias toward the right, just as most humans are right-handed, and this makes their shells spiral clockwise. (Very rare mutations can produce “left-handed” mollusks, whose shells spiral counterclockwise.) These coiled shells are compact and have a low center of gravity, making them efficient to carry as they protect their soft-bodied inhabitants from predators (and in the case of ocean mollusks, from tides and waves).

Mollusks stay in the same shells for their entire lives and never stop adding to them, though they add less and less as they age. “It’s like each shell is a snail’s autobiography,” says Jerry Harasewych, curator emeritus at the National Museum of Natural History,

Q: How does wildfire smoke affect the movement and communication of bees? —Valerie Townsley | French Gulch, California Bees use the sun to orient themselves and communicate their locations to others.
When the sunlight gets polarized by smoke, bees become disoriented.
The threat is even worse for domesticated honey bees, who live in aboveground hives and can’t hunker underground the way wild bees can.

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They’re also loyal subjects. “Honey bees will not relocate if fire approaches because the queen is typically incapable of flight at that stage of hive development,” says Floyd Shockley, an entomologist at the Natural History Museum, “And they will not abandon their queen.” If the wooden frame of their beehive catches fire, the bees will be consumed along with it.

Q: What is the earliest record of humans thinking about an afterlife? —Hannah Long | Saltillo, Mississippi Written records are full of beliefs about the afterlife, from reincarnation to resurrection, but they date back only about 5,000 years at most.
There’s no way of knowing prehistoric people’s thoughts.

“Beliefs do not fossilize,” says Rick Potts, a paleoanthropologist who directs the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program, Starting between 100,000 and 130,000 years ago, Homo sapiens living in what is now Israel buried people with items like animal bones, seashells and ocher pigment, perhaps because they thought the deceased could use those items in the next world.

But these relics might simply show that early humans honored and grieved their loved ones—something other primates like chimpanzees have also been shown to do.
Q: What is the rarest item in the Smithsonian collection, and how was it obtained? —Linda Lee Ahn | Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania It’s impossible to single out the rarest treasure in a collection of 155 million items, says Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar and Ambassador-at-Large.

But many objects have incredible acquisition stories. For instance, when the first gold nugget was found in California in early 1848, members of the U.S. Army brought it back to Washington, D.C. for testing. In December 1848, President James K. Polk formally announced the discovery, launching the gold rush. Get the latest on what’s happening At the Smithsonian in your inbox. Recommended Videos Filed Under: Ask Smithsonian, Bees, Gold Rush, Human Origins, Mollusks, Worms, Sponges, Starfish, Natural History Museum, Religion, Smithsonian Institution, Wildfire

How do snails protect themselves from the heat?

Land snails are leaky bags of water that survive on dry land. Snails lose water through evaporation, and because mucus is more than 90% water, they must expend water just to move, gliding on their silvery slime trails. Most land snails occur in moist environments where they can readily replenish lost water. Fig.1. Two Clydonopoma poloense snails from Dominican Republic showing their opercula. (Photo by S.P. Aiken with permission.) An operculum, or door, closes the shell in some land snails (Fig.1), although most land snails lack one. The operculum is attached to the rear of the snail’s tail; when the snail pulls into its shell, the tail withdraws last and positions the operculum to make a tight seal. Fig.2. Two Helix pomatia edible snails from Russia (CM154077) with apertures closed by an opaque epiphragm. (Photo by T.A. Pearce.) Snails that don’t have an operculum can cover the aperture with a mucus sheet called an epiphragm. In most snails, the epiphragm is thin and clear, but in some species, the epiphragm can be thick and opaque (Fig.2). Fig.3. Coelocentrum gigas from Guatemala CM62.8574 (left); Achatina zebra from Africa CM62.6917 (right). Land snails in drier areas tend to have relatively smaller apertures like the shell on the left. Shells pictured are 8 and 8.5 cm tall, respectively. Fig.4. Ganesella fusca (left) from Japan (CM106167) and Zachrysia guanensis (right) from Cuba (CM152889). Land snails in drier areas tend to have greater change in direction of growth when reaching full size, allowing the plane of the aperture to make a closer seal with flat surfaces. Fig.5. Urocyclid semi-slug from a dry area in N Kenya. (Photo by T.A. Pearce.) The mucus of some species retards evaporation. Snails produce different kinds of mucus, for example, the mucus they glide upon to move, sticky or distasteful mucus when irritated, and mucus on their skin that can retard evaporation.

One day when I was traveling in northern Kenya during the dry season after at least 6 months without rain, I was surprised to find a semi-slug (a gastropod whose shell is too small to fit the entire body) resting among some dry leaves and soil (Fig 5). It must have had special mucus covering the body that retarded water loss, allowing this species to survive many months of aridity.

Finally, snails influence their moisture loss by choosing their microhabitats. Some snails burrow underground during hot, dry weather to escape the heat. Other snails crawl under moist logs or descend deep into rock piles to avoid the harshest weather.

Why would snails even choose to live in the desert? I’m not sure anyone knows the answer for sure.
My guess is that snails might live in a desert because it allows them to escape predators or competitors who can’t or don’t want to live there.
How do they do it? Snails survive in the desert by leaking water a bit more slowly than snails in moist areas.

Timothy A. Pearce, PhD, is the head of the mollusks section at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

How do you make a snail feel safe?

Housing – The best way to house a pet snail is in a glass, plastic aquarium, or terrarium. This will give your snail a safe place to crawl around as well as more surface area for it to climb. Aquariums and terrariums are easy to wipe down and wash when necessary, keep the bedding contained, and help hold in moisture.

How do mystery snails protect themselves?

The mystery snail’s large size and hard operculum (a trap door cover which protects the soft flesh inside ), and their thick hard shell make them less edible by predators such as rusty crayfish.

How does a snails shell help it survive?

Mollusks have a physical bias toward the right, just as most humans are right-handed, and this makes their shells spiral clockwise. (Very rare mutations can produce “left-handed” mollusks, whose shells spiral counterclockwise.) These coiled shells are compact and have a low center of gravity, making them efficient to carry as they protect their soft-bodied inhabitants from predators (and in the case of ocean mollusks, from tides and waves).

Q: How does wildfire smoke affect the movement and communication of bees? —Valerie Townsley | French Gulch, California Bees use the sun to orient themselves and communicate their locations to others. When the sunlight gets polarized by smoke, bees become disoriented. The threat is even worse for domesticated honey bees, who live in aboveground hives and can’t hunker underground the way wild bees can.

Q: What is the earliest record of humans thinking about an afterlife? —Hannah Long | Saltillo, Mississippi Written records are full of beliefs about the afterlife, from reincarnation to resurrection, but they date back only about 5,000 years at most.
There’s no way of knowing prehistoric people’s thoughts.

But these relics might simply show that early humans honored and grieved their loved ones—something other primates like chimpanzees have also been shown to do.
Q: What is the rarest item in the Smithsonian collection, and how was it obtained? —Linda Lee Ahn | Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania It’s impossible to single out the rarest treasure in a collection of 155 million items, says Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar and Ambassador-at-Large.

How do snails support and protect themselves without a skeleton?

Jack Gloop