I thought our baby snail Junior (Jon came up with his name, which suits him perfectly) had found his grave in the watery depths of our fish tank.
After appearing every day on a leaf or the side of the fish tank, we didn’t see him for a week. We have so many plants and places for the snails to hide, especially a snail as small as he is, it’s not unusual for me not to have seen him for a while. And sometimes snails go dormant too. Laying low in their shells for a week or so.
But I was thinking the worse, I guess because there’s a good chance a snail so small wouldn’t survive.
Then, this afternoon, there he was, sliming up the bubble tube, eating the algae off it. And he grew. For the first time I could see the snail under the shell. His tiny tail, minuscule antenna, and the front of his foot, which takes up the whole bottom of the snail.
The website Snail World describes the snails foot this way:
“[The Snail] lacks legs but moves thanks to a “muscular ventral foot.” The foot has a wave-shaped movement produced by muscular contractions that make the snail “glide” while the foot secretes a slippery mucus that reduces the friction on the surface in which it moves. This mucus is the “trace” that the mollusk [leaves ]on the ground as it moves.”
Junior certain does look more and more like Socrates offspring, even though Socrates needs a mate to reproduce. I’m now convinced his egg came in on one of the plants. Hopefully he’ll grow to be a big and beautiful Mystery Snail like Socrates.
