Saturday, August 28, 2010

Snail Trails Day One

I know the photos are "ugly" but if you enlarge them you will find a surprise. I put them all here but he/she is doing different things in different photos. It's not always about "pretty"
Click on photos to see the visitors

We had a "frog choaker" of a rain and a lot of fireworks and loud noise yesterday. 3 inches of rain in about 30 minutes. YIPPEE we shouted as it poured down. The storm blew this ugly dead Queen of The Night bloom down on the ground.


All I intended was to show you how ugly the beautiful turn in a few days. Then I realized the dead flower had a live visitor and here we are.


. A snail's mouth is located on the lower area of the head, close to the short tentacles. On the inside of the mouth is a special eating tool, called the radula. This is a muscular structure coated by thousands of tiny teeth. Snails eat by pushing the radula against a leaf or other vegetation and rasping it and scraping away particles.


snails eat mushrooms, fruit, leaves and any other kind of vegetation they can find. Mostly, snails eat living plants, but also eat decaying ones. per What Do Snails Eat




These photos prove they like decaying Queen of The Night Flowers.
Just In Case You Care! ha ha

16 comments:

Betsy Banks Adams said...

How gorgeous.... I love those things --almost as much as I love squirrels and chipmunks... They are just so slimey and beautiful..... For some reason, I 'chill' when seeing them... Guess they turn me on.. Don't you think????? ha ha

Have a great SLIMEY weekend --and enjoy the "frog choaker" of a rain... Is that a KY saying???? Sounds like something my Daddy would have said...
Hugs,
Betsy

RoeH said...

Okay...my email wouldn't let me reply to your comment. I was having trouble with posting that elephant video. The computer kept going down. I have zero patience with that! Anyway, NOW there is an update to it that's kind of neat. I'll be back in a bit to read this post of yours. Looks interesting. Just as soon as I whack this computer with an axe.

Judy said...

Ugly but very interesting!
It just goes to show that God has a purpose for creatures great and small.
However, I enjoy snails most served with garlic butter! lol

RoeH said...

Okay...I love this. Nature and the say she works never ceases to amaze me that everything is in it's order. We don't have snails here but when I was in California they were everywhere and I'm the only one that ever liked them. Can you imagine crawling along with that heavy thing on your back?

(Update to computer issue: It didn't save your comment either!)

Grrrrrrrrrr.............

Anonymous said...

Great Photos! Are snails on the endangered species list yet? Or am I still allowed to step on them before they eat my flowers? :-)

Smita Srivastava said...

The clicks look so lively with the beautiful capture of snails ...


- Smita
www.littlefoodjunction.blogspot.com
( fun food ideas for picky eaters )

photowannabe said...

That's certainly a lot of rain in such a short amount of time.
The snails must love the mositure. Great pictures of the slimey little critters.

Ginny Hartzler said...

Great shots! They are almost cute, but not quite! I can't understand how the French eat them! Do you think they actually fell down with the bloom, or slunk onto it after it fell? We have the big shell-less slugs here that hang aroung the front door. You can kill them by pouring salt on them, but I think that is cruel.

DawnTreader said...

Great day for the snails, it seems - and for the Madsnapper of course. I've never been fond of creepy crawly slimy things but anything small has got a bit more interesting since the arrival of the digital camera with macro... :) I'm with Ginny though - can't understand how anyone came up with the idea of eating them. (Yuck.)

S. Etole said...

What a busy little guy ... and you noticed him and gave us new insight.

Dawning Inspiration said...

oooh - cool!!! How neat you found that little fella!!

George said...

I can't honestly say that your snail is beautiful, but the pictures are certainly interesting.

What Karen Sees said...

Humm, I'm trying, but I just can't see 'cute'. I think I'm gunna have to go with 'The Old Geezer' on this one. HAHA

Kilauea Poetry said...

Oh Sandra..thank you for the details..now I can say oh- radula slime- all over my lovely iris plants..take that x*^x#!!

SquirrelQueen said...

The little slugs don't think the dead bloom is ugly, they seem to find it very pleasing. Great shots of the little fellows. I don't mind snails or even the giant Banana slugs I see at the coast but we have ugly slugs here.

I've never heard the term "frog chocker" before. In GA it would have been a "toe strangler".

Unknown said...

I'm still looking for the ugly part... I haven't found it yet. These are lovely and so is the subject matter! I love nature even when it's rotten. LOL!