Ways to Help Snails

You've seen this before! It's a snail! Here is how to help these one-of-a-kind mollusks.

Watch your step! Whenever you walk down your driveway or to your front door, look at your feet! If it is after a storm, it is guaranteed you will come across one. Do not step on it! 

Snails and slugs are considered garden pests, but do not kill them! Before you kill an insect(or mollusk, in this case), always think about what the alternative could be. Here all you have to do is make a snail habitat in a fairly large fishtank. First, out in a thin layer of soil. Next, put in some rocks(both large and small). Then, add in some grass and moss. After that, you can prop some sticks up on the walls of the tank. Now you are ready to stock it with food! You can put in juicy leaves, but from my experience,snails prefer mushrooms! 

You can make your backyard snail-friendly, too. Whenever a log falls, instead of putting it in the trash, shove it in a shady spot of your yard. Scatter the ground with bits of dead leaves and rocks, and wait for the snails. 

Both snails and slugs are members of the family molluska, and in the class gastropoda. Gastropod means stomach foot, but snails actually do not move by means of stomach. Their stomachs and other organs are located in the shell. Snails and slugs have very odd eyes, them being suspended on tentacles. However, these long eyes are useful for probing in the leaf litter while seeing what you are doing. They can also act as feelers to sense what is in front of them. If there is danger, the snail will draw into its shell. If you have touched a snail, this was probably its response. 

Sometimes you may have seen trails of shiny slime. This comes from snails! This substance is mucus produced by the snail's 'foot'. This is usually used for crawling on. The mucus of a gastropod serves the function of a glue, allowing land snails to crawl up vertical surfaces without falling off. The slime trail that a land snail leaves behind is often visible as a silvery track on surfaces such as stone or concrete.

However, snails do not live only on land. They can live in water, too! When living in water, snails tend to appear much more colorful, but other than that, they look exactly like land snails. These water snails are only found in shallow water, and are especially abundant in coral reefs. Unlike land snails, sea snails can be poisonous to the touch(except for those in pet stores). They are also carnivorous. Some species will even eat other species of snail! Sea snails have the same internal structure and produce mucus.