Musings

Monday, July 27, 2015

Garden Snail

The more proficient natural scientists will have immediately noticed that this is not a moth. It is a mollusc. (There are more moths, of course, but it's good to mix it up a little.)
Having encountered a large number of these over the last few days (it's been raining a lot), and trodden (inadvertently) on several, it seemed churlish not to allow them some limelight. 
This is a common dextral form of the garden snail, Cornu aspersum (it used to be Helix aspersum) but there are a few sinistral forms out there (I will take more interest in future). They are hermaphrodite and have a lung, which compared to their more phylogenetically retarded cousins is just showing off.
Apparently they can move along the sharp edge of a razor blade with ease, the thought of which makes me slightly sick. They also eat a wide variety of things we try to grow.

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