Onions and Shallots from the garden

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Copulating Snails at our own Kitchen Door!!!

So recently I've been doing some research on snails and slugs. Why, you ask? Well, because they are super friggin' interesting, that's why! I've been finding these green jelly sacks all over the flower garden and was thinking maybe it was a snail egg sack. I'm still not sure on that one b/c I haven't been able to find any info on the green sacks online, but in the meantime I've learned a bit about snails copulation techniques (some people might call it snail sex...and yes, it's a process that happens at a snail's pace for sure.) It turns out that snails and slugs are hermapherdites. They just need to mate with another snail in order to fertalize eachother's eggs with the other's stuff (I'm not exactly sure if you still call it sperm when they are snails...I'm not a scientist, just a snail nerd). So these long white things come out of the sides of their heads and insert into the other snail's head. I came upon these snails when they were alreaady connected, but even still the process lasted over an hour...no quickies for snails! Here are some more pictures of them too. Patricia (a friend of ours) told us about a snail farm that's not too far from us...I had no idea! So now my new mission is to visit this farm and learn all I can about snails. Why? Because snails are cool!



2 comments:

  1. Does Cam know about your fascination? Don't snails eat up your produce? I think Cam would appreciate having them for dinner, accompanied by a nice butter and garlic sauce! Just some motherly advice.

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  2. Cam hates snails...but he knows I like them a lot. So he humors me by acting interested. ;)

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