Snails: Where Do They Come From? (aka, "Snails: WTF?"

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These critters seem to appear rather swiftly and then disappear just as swiftly, despite the fact that they move at a very slow pace. A snail's pace, if you will. Do they go underground with their shells? Do they hide in trees? Do they fly away? Can anyone explain this? My courtyard is constantly filled with SNAILS.

― Gear! (Ill Cajun Gunsmith) (Gear!), Thursday, 7 July 2005 19:10 (twenty years ago)

Teleportation

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 7 July 2005 19:12 (twenty years ago)

Or wait, that's worms.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Thursday, 7 July 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

my flowerpot is full of snails!!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 7 July 2005 19:17 (twenty years ago)

It took that thread two years to reach this one. (xpost)

― andy --, Thursday, 7 July 2005 19:42 (twenty years ago)

i remember as a little kid when i lived in germany there were snails everywhere.

― latebloomer: the Clonus Horror (latebloomer), Thursday, 7 July 2005 20:18 (twenty years ago)

i thought this would be an andy thread

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Thursday, 7 July 2005 20:19 (twenty years ago)

Sure, I could look up the info on the web, but I'm lazy and I want ILX to bring the facts to me.

― Gear! (Ill Cajun Gunsmith) (Gear!), Thursday, 7 July 2005 20:51 (twenty years ago)

http://www.dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/images/ParasiteImages/M-R/Metagonimiasis/Metagonimus_LifeCycle.gif

― no tech! (ex machina), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

all this relies on a so-called'undercooked fish' ?? how does this species survive?!?!

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:06 (twenty years ago)

that guy's brain is green!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:08 (twenty years ago)

There are snails in my backyard/patio on rainy and damp days. They are cuuuuute.

― Ian John50n (orion), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:10 (twenty years ago)

Mandee, my dog doesn't cook fish.

― no tech! (ex machina), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:11 (twenty years ago)

your dog needs to get a LIFE

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:12 (twenty years ago)

I'm supposed to be advising on a project monitoring powelliphanta snails. Even though we have countless reports of people seeing shells in the grassland and on tracks and basically all over the study site, Our systematic searching didn't bloody find any except in the forest or close to it. I have tentatively concluded that they live in the forest and charge out into the tussock each night, some dying out there and being spotted by passersby. This relies on them going a lot faster and further than we thought (several kms in some cases). Which could be crap.

I hate vegetarian snails, they are the only garden pest I would seriously consider poisoning.

― isadora (isadora), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:16 (twenty years ago)

I got asked at work the other day if we carried escargot plates. HA!

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:44 (twenty years ago)

according to my dad i had escargot as a kid and loved it!

ah, the snails of my youth.

― latebloomer: the Clonus Horror (latebloomer), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:50 (twenty years ago)

maybe by "escargot" he meant he caught you in the backyard picking up snails and eating them!

― Gear! (Ill Cajun Gunsmith) (Gear!), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:52 (twenty years ago)

I keep standing on snails in the dark :(

but someone told me i shouldnt feel bad because they only live in that moment in which they die. So in a way i am giving them the gift of life.

― Hari A$hur$t (Toaster), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:53 (twenty years ago)

maybe by "escargot" he meant he caught you in the backyard picking up snails and eating them!

-- Gear! (Ill Cajun Gunsmith) (speed.to.roam@gmail.com), July 7th, 2005.

funnily enough i did supposedly do that with a grasshopper as a toddler.

― latebloomer: the Clonus Horror (latebloomer), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:56 (twenty years ago)

probably explains some things.

― latebloomer: the Clonus Horror (latebloomer), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:56 (twenty years ago)

has anyone ever seen an African snail?

http://www.kingsnake.com/westindian/achatinafulica1.JPG

― Gear! (Ill Cajun Gunsmith) (Gear!), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:58 (twenty years ago)

http://www.urbanaxis4pets.com/images/items/233LazyDogMakiSushi_LazyDog.jpg

― no tech! (ex machina), Thursday, 7 July 2005 21:59 (twenty years ago)

That's the evil Achatina, well known scourge of peaceful pacific snails. A classic example of dumb biological control (swallowing the spider to catch the fly). I've seen them in Samoa.

― isadora (isadora), Thursday, 7 July 2005 22:02 (twenty years ago)

That man holding the african snail has a tiny little hand. Doesn't he?

― Hari A$hur$t (Toaster), Thursday, 7 July 2005 22:02 (twenty years ago)

What do snails taste like? Admittedly, I've eaten sea cucumber (half asian, me) and etc, and can't imagine them being too much different in terms of consistency...

― Jimmy Mod Is Sick of Being The Best At Everything (ModJ), Friday, 8 July 2005 04:01 (twenty years ago)

The house I rented in Sydney had an external bathroom and there were snails in the bathtub every morning IN THE EXACT SAME PLACE despite the fact that I removed them every time I saw one.

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Friday, 8 July 2005 04:06 (twenty years ago)

http://n00095.myspace.com/00095/44/34/95984344_l.jpg

out of the fireplace, apparently.

― Jena (JenaP), Friday, 8 July 2005 04:35 (twenty years ago)

According to Wikipedia:

Snails, like many worms, are hermaphrodites, producing both sperm and eggs. Prolific breeders, snails exchange sperm with one another to fertilize their eggs. Each brood may consist of up to 100 eggs.

Garden snails bury their eggs in shallow topsoil primarily while the weather is warm and damp. After 2 to 4 weeks of favorable weather, these eggs hatch and the young emerge. Snails may lay eggs as often as once a month.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Friday, 8 July 2005 04:44 (twenty years ago)

My hovercraft is full of eels.

No, wait hang on...

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 8 July 2005 07:32 (twenty years ago)

they sell giant african snails to eat in ridley road market sometimes - stelfox has seen em, not me

also in the vietnamese eat places they sometimes have stuffed snail! fascination > courage, so far

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 8 July 2005 07:40 (twenty years ago)

Snail has a texture rather like uncooked squid - slightly rubbery with a paste-like finish. Not all that pleasant but not disgusting either.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 8 July 2005 08:38 (twenty years ago)

i like ordinary proper french escargots - w.butter and garlic and those curly little tongs, but in nîmes last year i had escargots as part of tapas

i advice against this, it doesn't go

(tho i guess its yuckiness might be down the the circs: while we were waiting, the chef threw a tantrum and walked out - we heard from our wiaiter that our meal was the one he threw on the floor, and it had to be remade from scratch, presumably by someone other than the chef)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 8 July 2005 08:45 (twenty years ago)

i once ate a worm
i was three

― dahlin (dahlin), Friday, 8 July 2005 09:03 (twenty years ago)

Never understood the British disgust/amusement with l'escargots given that we eat cockles and winkles etc, which are just snails you find at the seaside aren't they???!!??

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 8 July 2005 09:06 (twenty years ago)

I hate to say it but that diagram looked suspiciously like the lifecycle of a tapeworm.

― Stone Monkey (Stone Monkey), Friday, 8 July 2005 10:09 (twenty years ago)

http://www.citypaper.com/sb/55202/perrybible.jpg

― peter in montreal (spaces are allowed), Friday, 8 July 2005 13:58 (twenty years ago)

i only see them after it rains. so they come from the sky.

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 8 July 2005 15:13 (twenty years ago)

i read a recipe for paella which calls for snails, saying you can subsitute rosemary because the flavor is similar.

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 8 July 2005 15:18 (twenty years ago)

rosemary and snails aren't even the same kind of texture!

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 8 July 2005 15:19 (twenty years ago)

Never understood the British disgust/amusement with l'escargots given that we eat cockles and winkles etc, which are just snails you find at the seaside aren't they???!!??

Hmmm. Interesting. Actually I think I like cockles and winkles (bulots?) better than snails which are just a vehicle for butter, garlic and parsley really.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 8 July 2005 15:24 (twenty years ago)

Never understood the British disgust/amusement with l'escargots given that we eat cock[...]

This was where I stopped reading and started giggling.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 8 July 2005 17:32 (twenty years ago)

....heh heh. I have a childhood memory of buying winkles in small paper bag (or a "wee poke" was we would call it) from the corner shop at the end of our street and eating them with safety pin - or did I just dream all that?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Saturday, 9 July 2005 11:31 (twenty years ago)

Treading on snails sends shudders down my spine and makes me feel ill.

I don't want to go to Africa after it rains.
Treading on one of those things would be horrid. Although maybe their shells are stronger.

― bilblio (Celeste), Saturday, 9 July 2005 20:44 (twenty years ago)

Largest known African giant snail was 15.5" long and weighed two pounds, according to my old Guiness Book of Records. Sierra Leone is the place to avoid, apparently.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 9 July 2005 20:50 (twenty years ago)

wow, I hate to think what will happen once Dan reaches "winkles"

― Kim (Kim), Saturday, 9 July 2005 20:51 (twenty years ago)

(next section after gastropods tells me that the largest worm ever topped 180', yes feet, long, which I didn't want to know)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 9 July 2005 20:52 (twenty years ago)

tapeworms in the guts of whales get that big, I believe.

― MarkH (MarkH), Sunday, 10 July 2005 15:51 (twenty years ago)

Martin's Book Of Gastropods

Chapter 1. Snails
Chapter 2. Dune

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 10 July 2005 15:53 (twenty years ago)

haha Tom!

i'm just imagining walking on that worm's sidewalk after a rain.

― Kim (Kim), Sunday, 10 July 2005 15:58 (twenty years ago)

five years pass...

I just saw a snail pooping from some kind of sidebutt. I was unaware of this phenomenon.

― + +, Monday, 13 June 2011 19:30 (fourteen years ago)

This is a grotesque image.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 13 June 2011 19:36 (fourteen years ago)

sidebutt

― i wanna be yr rhizome (seandalai), Monday, 13 June 2011 20:01 (fourteen years ago)

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