Snail Research Papers

Snails has been around Earth longer than the beginning of man. According to Samford Singer, gastropods appeared about 600 million years ago [2]. Today, there are thousands different species of snails varying from marine, freshwater, and land. All these species plays a huge role in a diverse ecosystem. They provide important food source to many different predator such as birds, fish, rodents, etc. Perhaps the most common snail is the garden snail, Helix aspersa. The body of a snail consist of foot, head, and a coiled visceral mass which is located on the hard outer shell. Two pairs of tentacles are placed in their head. The lower pair provides the sense of touch and taste. The upper pair provides visual. Perhaps one of the special feature about this snail is his tongue which is called radula, which is a ribbon-like tongue with teeths [1,2]. These snails are omnivores as they eat plants , decaying flesh, algies. These snails and most other snails are hermaphrodites, having both male and female sex organs. Usually they mate with another individual of the same species but they can self fertilize. The fertilized eggs hatch between two weeks to two months and are often buried about 10cm under the soil or plants depending of the species[2]. They move by contracting and relaxing muscles in …show more content…
The garden snails are dark brown color with a measurement between 3 to 5 cm. Originally, most of the snails were on the top of the lid before retrieved. Under the dissecting microscope, the details of the shell were asymmetrical and smooth. The foot of the snails secreted mucus as they move around the Petri dish. Based on the observation, we hypothesized that these garden snails will move upward if the Petri dish was vertical since it is easier for them to climb upward due to their slime in which lubricate their movement. Also, higher ground will provide them an advantage to seek resources such as food and