Turbo snail skin#

Most land snails are hermaphrodites because each has both male and female reproductive organs. To compensate this absence of hearing they have an excellent associative thought which helps them remember the places where they were or where the objects of their surroundings are.

However, they are practically deaf since they have no ears nor ear canal. The sense of sight of snails is useful but only detect changes in the intensity of light to recognize whether it is night or day They can move their tentacles up or down to improve their ability to see. Although this is a rudimentary brain, they have an excellent ability for associative thinking. The ganglia interconnect by bundles of nerve fibers that transport the signals at high speed. Instead, nerve cells concentrate in a set of ganglia and emit neurosecretions that trigger necessary actions like the release of hormones. In contrast, they do not have a brain like that of dogs or humans. They are pulmonate animals, which means that they have a lung specialized in using the oxygen obtained from breathing the air from the atmosphere. The internal organs, including gonads, intestines, heart and esophagus, create an organic mass protected by the mantle. Inside, the body of the snails lack divisions. The largest are members of the family Achatinidae, of which the species Achatina achatina can reach a length up to 11.8 inches and a diameter up to 5.9 inches. Otherwise, their moist bodies could dry out. Snails spend a long time in their shell when the weather is hot and dry. When snails sense danger around them, they hide into the shell. Some land species secrete a layer of mucus, which when hardened blocks the entrance of the shell and is called epiphragm. You may not always see their tentacles because all land snails have the ability to retract them.

Turbo snail skin#

It also has an outer skin fold of tissue, which covers the internal organs and also usually covers the shell and the mantle cavity. The lower pair works as olfactory organs to smell. The head, at one end of the body, has one to two pairs of tentacles (retractable and provided with tactile receptors), which have the eyes at the tips. This mucus is the “trace” that leaves the mollusk on the ground as it moves. It 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. The rest of the body is soft, with a viscous texture and dark colors with gray or light spots. Author Original by Wikimedia Commons User Al2, English captions and other edits by Jeff Dahl The shell protects the body and internal organs of the animal and has an opening to one side, usually the right. Its surface can show different colors with fringe designs, but they usually are brown or yellow. It is made up of calcium carbonate which makes it strong and remains that way as long as the snail consumes food with calcium. This structure protects the snail from the environment and even from predators. However, all of them have a spiral design, caused by the way land snails produce and growth their shells. Some of them are cone-shaped while others are round. The shell of a land snail can be very different in size and shape depending on the species. The Hipostracum is below, and the most superficial layer is the periostracum, composed of a lot of proteins. The central layer of the shell, called ostracum, has two layers of crystals of the same substance, calcium carbonate. The former is a solid spiral-shaped structure carried on the back, made of a single piece and consisting mostly of calcium carbonate. To analyze the external anatomy of snails, we will divide their body into the shell and the soft body that holds it. The shell can be very different in size and shape depending on the species. When you start to analyze all of the parts of their body, though, they have a unique anatomy and physiology. Some people find them fascinating while others think they are pretty ugly. His body is a cluster of peculiarities and surprising data, not found in other animals. Most of us recognize snails by their spiral shell, but this is not the only interesting thing about them. The anatomy of a land snail is very different from most animals.