I was wandering outside the other day. The weather is getting warmer, the days are slowly getting longer, and it’s been pretty clear outside. I figured I might venture out with my macro lens and see what I might find. I admit it’s been quite some time since I’ve put my macro lens on.
I went out back to check on a few plants and things that are sprouting. Hopefully they’ll attract a number of butterflies like they did last year. My dogs also live out back, and on of then in particular likes… or should I say LOVES water. I bought him a trough from the feed store and fill it up. I had emptied it over the winter and noticed there was a small bit of stagnant green water in there from the recent rains. I decided it’s now warm enough to start filling it up again. Turning his trough over usually leads to a bunch of interesting critters: slugs, snails, teeny tiny bugs with tons of legs, worms, and even spiders including the black widow. I don’t often see too many snails with shells around, but the last 2 days I was lucky.
Here are a few of my favorite snail pictures:
I particularly enjoy macro photography because I like finding the Fibonacci sequence in nature. I tried to research these snails a bit. In one of the images you can see the snail picking up a huge rock. He went to this right away and seemed to suck them back into his shell. These snails were not as easy to research as other macro animals. I did find that a snail makes it’s shell from a mucus it secretes that turns hard. Take a close look to the pics and you will see some of the mucus. It appears it uses calcium carbonate and other minerals to do this. I am not sure if that is the reason the snail picked up the rocks. The other suggestion is the snail was simply trying to find it’s footing. The smaller of the snails the first day did not “collect” any rocks. The larger of the snails picked them all up.
And while researching snails I found this to be interesting:
The coil of a snail shell can be either right-handed (dextral) or left-handed (sinistral), based on whether the shell spirals out clockwise or counterclockwise when viewed from above. Most species are composed entirely of individuals that are one or the other type; in exceptional cases, populations may differ in their handedness, or chirality, but within a single population, all individuals tend to be alike. This makes sense, since the mechanics of reproduction are harder between two individuals of opposite chirality (their genitalia are also reversed), reducing the likelihood that they will successfully mate and produce offspring. Over time, therefore, the rarer type will become rarer and rarer until it goes extinct.
Hope you enjoyed the pics. I’ll be looking for more as the year goes on. These were all released back to where they were found. I’m sure I’ll come across them again one day. To see the full gallery or purchase prints, click here: Snail Macro Pictures by Abby Malone.
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