Snail is a common name that is applied most often to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name "snail" is also applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have a coiled shell that is large enough for the animal to retract completely into. When the word "snail" is used in this most general sense, it includes not just land snails but also thousands of species of sea snails and freshwater snails. Occasionally a few other molluscs that are not actually gastropods, such as the Monoplacophora, which superficially resemble small limpets, may also informally be referred to as "snails".
Snail-like animals that naturally lack a shell, or have only an internal shell, are usually called slugs, and land snails that have only a very small shell (that they cannot retract into) are often called semislugs.
Other articles related to "snail, snails":
... Snails and slug species that are not normally eaten in certain areas have occasionally been used as famine food in historical times ... Romans are said to have made of the great apple-snail ...
... Land snails have been eaten for thousands of years, going back at least as far as the Pleistocene ... Archaeological evidence of snail consumption is especially abundant in Capsian sites in North Africa, but is also found throughout the Mediterranean region in archaeological sites dating between 12,000 ... However, wild-caught land snails which are prepared for the table but are not thoroughly cooked, can harbor a parasite (Angiostrongylus cantonensis) that can ...
... Lanistes ovum is a species of freshwater snail with an operculum, an African apple snail, an aquatic gastropod mollusk in the family Ampullariidae ... This species of snail is widely found in Botswana, Congo, Chad, Ghana, Cameroon, Gambia, Angola, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa ...
... The Sopwith 8F.1 Snail was designed by Herbert Smith of Sopwith Aviation Company to meet the Air Board Specification A.1A for a light fighter with superior performance to the Sopwith Camel ... fuselage (which resulted in the designation Snail Mk.II) flew in April 1918 ... (serial number C4288), with the monocoque fuselage (and thus designated Snail Mk ...
... This snail feeds on cirratulinid polychaete worms ... The toxins from these worms become incorporated into the snail's tissues and are then used for the bubble snail's own defense ...
Famous quotes containing the word snail:
“The snail in his museum
wears his mother all day,
he hides his mysterious bottom
as if it were rotten fruit.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)