The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
The monsoons are almost over, and since we have spent the last few months searching for and photographing snails, I thought it would be appropriate to write one final, exhaustive post about these creatures which fascinate Samhith. They are indeed fascinating, even though they are the pests here, eating up our garden little by little. They are most visible on the rainy days, and the days after, disappearing once the water dries up, disappearing into holes we have not yet succeeded in discovering. So here’s some of the information we have gathered (from the net of course, where else?).
Snails are called ‘Gastropods’, literally meaning ‘belly footed animal’ (Gastro means stomach and pod means foot). Garden snails are the only molluscs living on land!
The snails’ body is long, moist and slimy, and the shell helps protect it. It withdraws into the shell not only to protect itself from predators, but also to protect itself from dry weather. They are most active in a moist climate, which is why we see them so often in the monsoons. In dry weather, they simply hide and stay within their shells or in holes in the ground. In winter, they hibernate for months!
Snails are of different sizes and have different shaped shells. The shells of a juvenile (young one) are lighter in colour and have different patterns.
This is a young one.....
and so are these....
Can you see the difference in shell patterns?
and look at this one which not just has a different kind of shell, but is also much smaller...
Snails live for about 5 to 10 years.
Garden snails have eyes at the tip of their tentacles. They have two pairs of tentacles on their head – one pair is longer than the other pair. The longer ones have the eyes at their tips, and the shorter ones are used for smelling their way around. You can see all the four tentacles in this pic...
Did you know that snails have teeth? I certainly didn’t, until I read about them! They have a tongue –like structure called ‘radula’ with a row of fine, tiny teeth, which it uses to scrape off leaves and flowers. last year, I managed to photograph a snail eating a flower... Here is a slideshow which I had posted then......
The largest snails are the ‘Giant African Snails’, which can grow to a length of over 30 cm! The longest ones I have seen are around 5-6 cm.
Snails move by creeping on the muscles underneath their body – a foot like structure, which expands and contracts, creating a movement which pushes the snail forward. This ‘foot’ also has a special gland which ejects a slimy substance which helps the snail move easily, even over rough areas.
Snails are both male and female – they are called ‘Hermaphrodite’. While mating, they twist around each other and cover themselves in the slimy substance. Look at this one.... We realized that there was something odd about that tail on the shell... it couldn't possibly be the tail of the same snail, but we couldn't go over to the other side of the wall, and thus couldn't see if there was another one there, but on reading about their mating habits, this seemed quite possible... Don't you think so?
A snail lays as many as 80 eggs at a time into the topsoil on the ground. They can do this almost 6 times in a single year. No wonder there are so many snails around! Baby snails take almost 2 years to become adults!
That was quite a bit of information, wasn’t it? I searched all that so I could explain to Samhith, and it was so interesting that I decided to write about it instead! Hope you all liked it.
thats a hell lot of information !!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.. :)
Lovely pictures and now I know something about snails. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteWow! That's a lot of info packed in one post!!! Will get my son to read this! Thanks for sharing..
ReplyDeleteNice. I have clicking a few of them as well :)
ReplyDeleteI love these slimy creatures but dint know so much about them...
ReplyDeleteYes, thats quite an info... And very interesting too:)
Lovely pics!
Hey! Some of my friends could you this post to tell their kids about snails. I think I'll send this link to at least one of them :)
ReplyDeletePainstaking effort admirably done.But I detest these creatures that leave a slimy trail
ReplyDeleteWOW! Great pictures and a fantastic post on Snails. Now I do something about Snails or should I say Gastropods :-) thanks to you and Samhith!
ReplyDelete@shyam: thanks a lot!
ReplyDelete@Mridula: we have been fascinated by these creatures for years.... and they are just too visible in the monsoons to ignore... so thought of doing a proper post with pics and info...
@Vidya: glad to be of help.. would like to know what your son thinks after he reads this...
@slogan Murugun: would love to see yours..
@Arti: we didnt know much either, but having so many pics, i decided to do a bit of research and write it up!
@Usha: good.. let me know if they find it useful!
@KParthasrathy: i know these are pests, and as I keep telling samhith, we like them just because they are not eating up our useful plants... but they are fascinating, nevertheless!
@Sankara: thanks.... its a pleasure to share the info..
wow...really Great write-up
ReplyDeletenice that you have different species of snails around. we have only one kind but during monsoon hundreds of comes out and we have to be careful that they not get crushed.
ReplyDeleteYes Sejal, we have two major varieties of snails, apart from others with different markings! some of them are quite huge, so its not difficult to avoid them.. we too are afraid of crushing the smaller ones, though!
ReplyDelete