Snail Sex!

Has anyone else noticed that snails seem to always come out while it's raining? Has anyone else noticed that while it's raining seems to be the only time you will see two snails getting it on? Well...I hope I'm not the only one.

Today it is raining where I live and I was sitting at dinner with my parents wondering what to post about today and I was reminded of the times when I was a wee tot and I would go outside in the rain and to collect snails and all too often would find myself picking up two of them mating. And then, as I was sitting there eating my cheese enchilada, I was wondering; why is it that so many snails come out and mate while it's raining? So I came home and looked it up!
The first thing you need to know is that snails need plenty of water to be active, otherwise they dry out and die. When snails cannot get enough water they go into a hibernation- like state called estivation until there is more moisture in it's environment. If you pick up snails often, like I do, you may have noticed snails in this state before. They generally are stuck to a leaf and when you pick them up you have to sort of peel their shell off of the surface they are on and if you look inside their shell they are hidden deep within it and have a film over them. Most people that see snails in this state think that they are dead, this is not the case, all you need to do to wake one up is throw it in a bucket of water. It will wake up and climb out, and NO IT WILL NOT DROWN.

The next thing you need to know is that snails find a mate by following a slime trail. Given all of the above information, the reason we see so many mating snails while it's raining is because more snails have come out of estivation, due to the moisture in the air, and are now active, resulting in more snail trails (slime doesn't wash off easily in rain or water, it makes it stickier).

One other interesting thing to know about snail reproduction is that almost all snails are hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female reproductive organs, making it easier to find a mate. They can also self- fertilize.


Sources:

http://www.petsnails.co.uk/faq.html#biblio

http://lhsfoss.org/fossweb/teachers/materials/plantanimal/landsnails.html