What Do Snails Eat and Other Fun Snail Trivia
Most people only know snails as slugs that hide in shells and move really slow, but actually there is so much more to this creature unknown to most of the population. Here are some facts and trivia about snails that you may find interesting:
-Snails are herbivores that eat living and decaying plants and even soil. Snails are a common pest on many farms as they eat both plants and soil and cause farmers a hard time. Even more often, the snail is a garden pest. Snails are commonly found in gardens making the garden snail the most common in the species.
-The biggest snail that has ever been found was more than a foot in length and weighed more than two pounds.
-In Europe, snails are commonly found in food stuffs known as Escargot in France.
-Snails can live up to fifteen years though most live under ten years. The lifespan depends on the few species of slugs and snails, some live as little as two or three years.
-Snails have both female and male reproductive parts.
-It is believed that the snail used to live exclusively in salt water until its evolution to the dry land roughly six hundred million years ago.
-Snails have very little sense of direction and usually wind up moving in circles.
-Like some mammals, snails hibernate during the winter.
-Snails have no hearing and are nearly blind.
-Snails typically sleep throughout the day and are "active" during the night.
-Most snails move at the snail's pace of roughly two feet per hour.
-Snails are found in locations of nearly every climate.
-Because they are found in so many different locations, snails have many different predators. Most carnivorous mammals eat snails as do some species of insects such as some beetles and caterpillars. The snail's only defense mechanism is to crawl inside of its shell.
