No surprise that in love, garden snails like to take it slow.
But this isn’t some basic boy-meets-girl story.
Snails are hermaphrodites.
They have both boy and girl parts.
You might think that makes life simpler.
But not... so... fast.
Snails are deaf and basically blind.
Their eyes really only see shadows.
So snails rely on taste and smell to find a partner.
They just follow the slime.
Gliding along, until...
Bada-BOOM.
They get pretty cozy... touching, tasting, smelling, for hours...
But these snails are about to have a battle of the sexes.
Even though they’re both both sexes.
The first shot is a secret love dart.
Before the real action starts, they stab each other with these tiny spears that are normally
hidden inside their bodies.
Different species have different shaped darts.
There it is.
The dart delivers hormones that will stimulate it to accept sperm.
It’s made of calcium carbonate, the same as the snail’s shell...hard and sharp, like
a needle.
Things really heat up from there.
That thing is called the everted atrium.
It’s like a rubber glove slowly turning inside out...until...
Yep, that’s exactly what you think it is.
Once they get lined up, the snails swap sperm.
You take some of mine, I take some of yours.
But this battle isn’t over.
The snails’ bodies go on the attack, killing most of the other snail’s sperm before they
get to the eggs.
See, whether you’re one sex—or both—fatherhood is easy.
It’s the cheapest way to produce offspring.
Motherhood, that’s hard work.
So both snails want to be more father than they are mother.
That’s where the love dart comes in.
Its hormones help protect the sperm, so more of them survive in the other snail’s body.
The snail that fires the best shot has the edge in passing on his...her….their genes.
In about two weeks… the snails lay eggs underground.
Those are the baby snails moving around inside.
They hatch and eat what’s left of their egg.
Before heading out into the world.
Very slowly, of course.
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