In Bulgaria , snails are traditionally cooked in an oven with rice or fried in a pan with vegetable oil and red paprika powder. Before they are used for those dishes, however, they are thoroughly boiled in hot water for up to 90 minutes and manually extracted from their shells. The two species most commonly used for food in the country are Helix lucorum and Helix pomatia. Snails and slug species that are not normally eaten in certain areas have occasionally been used as famine food in historical times.

A history of Scotland written in the s recounts a description of various snails and their use as food items in times of plague. Skin creams derived from Helix aspersa snails are sold for use on wrinkles, scars, dry skin, and acne.

A research study suggested that secretions produced under stress by Helix aspersa might facilitate regeneration of wounded tissue. Because of its slowness, the snail has traditionally been seen as a symbol of laziness. In Christian culture, it has been used as a symbol of the deadly sin of sloth.

In Mayan mythology , the snail is associated with sexual desire, being personified by the god Uayeb. Snails were widely noted and used in divination. This symbolised rebirth; the snail's penchant for appearing and disappearing was analogised with the moon. Professor Ronald Chase of McGill University in Montreal has suggested the ancient myth of Cupid 's arrows might be based on early observations of the love dart behavior of the land snail species Helix aspersa.

In contemporary speech, the expression "a snail's pace" is often used to describe a slow, inefficient process. The phrase " snail mail " is used to mean regular postal service delivery of paper messages as opposed to the delivery of email , which can be virtually instantaneous.


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Keong Emas Javanese and Indonesian for Golden Snail is a popular Javanese folklore about a princess magically transformed and contained in a golden snail shell. Certain varieties of snails, notably the family Muricidae , produce a secretion that is a color-fast natural dye. The ancient Tyrian purple was made in this way as were other purple and blue dyes.

Gastropod shell - Wikipedia

It is such dyes as these that led to certain shades of purple and blue being associated with royalty and wealth. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Snail disambiguation. For sea snails, see Sea snail. For land snails, see Land snail. Land snail , Freshwater snail , and Sea snail.

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Retrieved 29 March Retrieved 19 June Retrieved 17 December Domestic annals of Scotland, from the reformation to the revolution. Similar ridges or columellar plicae or folds are more often found on the inner lip, next to the columella or central spiral twist. These may be oblique or normal to the axis of coiling horizontal , few or numerous, readily seen, or far within the shell so as to be invisible except in broken shells.

When the axis of coiling is hollow perforate spire the opening at the base constitutes the umbilicus. The umbilicus varies greatly in size, and may be wholly or in part covered by an expansion or callus of the inner lip Natica. Many Recent shells, when the animal is alive or the shell is freshly empty, have an uppermost shell layer of horny, smooth, or hairy epidermis or periostracum , a proteinaceous layer which sometimes is thick enough to hide the color markings of the surface of the shell.

The periostracum, as well as the coloration, is only rarely preserved in fossil shells.

Gastropod shell

The apertural end of the gastropod shell is the anterior end, nearest to the head of the animal; the apex of the spire is often the posterior end or at least is the dorsal side. Most authors figure the shells with the apex of the spire uppermost. In life, when the soft parts of these snail are retracted, in some groups the aperture of the shell is closed by using a horny or calcareous operculum , a door-like structure which is secreted by, and attached to, the upper surface of the posterior part of the foot. The operculum is of very variable form in the different groups of snails that possess one.

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The overall shape of the shell varies. For example, three groups can be distinguished based on the height — width ratio: The following are the principal modifications of form in the gastropod shell. Detailed distinction of the shape can be: The most frequently used measurements of a gastropod shell are: The number of whorls is also often used. In this context, the height or the length of a shell is its maximum measurement along the central axis. The width or breadth, or diameter is the maximum measurement of the shell at right angles to the central axis. Both terms are only related to the description of the shell and not to the orientation of the shell on the living animal.

The central axis is an imaginary axis along the length of a shell, around which, in a coiled shell, the whorls spiral. The central axis passes through the columella, the central pillar of the shell. Among proposed roles invoked for the variability of shells during evolution include mechanical stability, [15] defense against predators [16] and climatic selection. The shells of some gastropods have been reduced or partly reduced during their evolution.

How snails get both ‘lefty’ and ‘righty’ shells

This reduction can be seen in all slugs , in semi-slugs and in various other marine and non-marine gastropods. Sometimes the reduction of the shell is associated with a predatory way of feeding.


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Some taxa lost the coiling of their shell during evolution. Despite that, there are few genera in the family Calyptraeidae that changed their developmental timing heterochrony and gained back re-evolution a coiled shell from the previous condition of an uncoiled limpet -like shell. In large enough quantities, gastropod shells can have enough of an impact on environmental conditions to affect the ability of organic remains in the local environment to fossilize.

Turritella communis , many-whorled shell of tower snail. Shell of marine cowry snail — Cypraea nebrites. Epitonium scalare spiral shell. X-ray image of the shell of Tonna galea.

Thin section in plane-polarized light of microscopic gastropod shell, from Holocene lagoonal sediment of Rice Bay, San Salvador Island , Bahamas. This article incorporates public domain text from references, [1] [8] [9] and CC-BY From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the cave in Tennessee, see Snail Shell Cave. X-ray image of Turritella. X-ray image of Cypraea.

Brown Company Publishers, Dubuque, Iowa. The Panda's Thumb , accessed 3 May Fieldiana Zoology 41 4: Shelled Gastropoda of Western Europe. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology Learn how your comment data is processed. It seems that the name of the organism in the "summary" section has been spelt incorrectly — my research keeps on seeing the following spelling: Unfortunately, we don't have time to do additional research for you on this.

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You should try to get the papers cited and check the researchers' websites for more information. Learn What is Biomimicry? Group Directory Member Directory. Protect from light Protect from loss of liquids Protect from temperature. Use of this illustration for purposes other than educational purposes requires permission from Biomimicry 3.