Garden Snails , How To Crawl On Branches

Garden Snails , How To Crawl On Branches , The most striking physical feature of snails is their spiral shell that they load on the back. It is a hard structure composed of calcium carbonate, which protects their soft body and internal organs. Among these organs is their lung because land snails breathe air from the atmosphere that then passes into a lung to get the oxygen; this is one of the main differences with aquatic snails, that only a few species of water snails breathe air.

You will find snails everywhere around the world. In fact, Gastropods range second, only behind insects when it comes to the number of named species. As an obvious result of this, they are found in many locations, living in a very diverse type of habitats and even having particular feeding habits.

The Earth offers a vast diversity of habitats for snails. Surely you have found tiny snails under a stone, but also climbing some stem or leaf of a plant. They can survive in natural environments or places frequented by humans, such as public parks and gardens.

Their quantity and diversity are vast. There are anything between 85,000 and 150,000 mollusks of which 80-85 percent are gastropods. Therefore, the world is home to more than 60,000 species of them.

Land snails range greatly in size. While some of them are only a few inches long and often weigh only a few ounces, there are land snails that reach almost 12 inches, like the Giant African Land Snail, a species endemic to Africa.

Although snails do not have legs, they can move thanks to a “muscular foot” that, based on wave movements, allows the snail to go from one place to another. This action is smoother and safer for snails with the help of the “mucus” that the snail secretes to slide on all types of surfaces and maintain its moisture reduces friction and avoids harms to their body.

When snails multiply and damage crops or in some way affect the species of a region or the human being, they are considered pests. Certain species grow up to the size of an adult hand, and of course, their feeding needs also increase. That is why it is important to pay attention to the recommendations about the handling and care of snails.

In conclusion, snails are much more than a shell. On this site, we talk about land snails. Therefore we implicitly exclude freshwater and sea snails and refer only to the terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells.