“For observing nature, the best pace is a snail’s pace” Edwin Way Teale

With summer comes very warm, humid nights. If you happen to take a stroll in your garden with a flashlight in the evening, you will probably see an industrious nighttime mollusk called Zachrysia provisoria, also known as the Cuban brown snail. And where there is one you can be assured there are many more. Unless sick or disoriented, during daytime they normally go underground, covering themselves in a layer of mucous to keep from drying out in the heat of the day and dying. They also bury themselves in our dry, winter season, and then re-emerge when moist/humid conditions return.

While others may equate watching snail activity as a pastime to watching paint dry, I find their make-up and movements fascinating to observe. The garden snail has a calcium-rich shell, two sets of antennae, with tiny eyes protruding from the larger set, and a strong, muscular, mucous-laden foot that allows it to crawl over rough surfaces. With an average speed of 0.03 mph, a typical snail can cover a good bit of ground in an hour’s time. Steady in pace and leaving a trail of mucous in its wake, very little seems to get in the way in its quest for a hearty meal and mating opportunities.

Although each snail has both male and female reproductive organs and can produce viable eggs on its own, most of the time its preference is to mate with another snail. After mating the snails each bury a large quantity of eggs in the soil and Voila! Within 2-4 weeks the eggs that have survived predators and other factors hatch and the young begin life by eating their eggshells for a much needed boost of calcium carbonate, a critical bit of initial nutrition for their own shell development. Afterwards, they emerge from underground and the cycle of life continues.

Not only are they successful breeders but these snails are also voracious eaters, and adults are able to eat several times their body weight each day, feasting on a wide range of ornamentals and other crops. Their finely-toothed radula allows them to happily rasp away tissue, causing considerable damage to leaves and other plant parts. If you notice irregular holes in leaves, this could be an indication of snail activity. I say “could” because other pests may be at work. For that reason it is always best to investigate the situation and use the data gathered in determining the actual cause of damage.

If snails are the issue, you can apply snail bait of course for control purposes but there are various non-chemical methods that are available. You can try removing hiding places, using copper bands around the base of susceptible plants, luring the snails with beer in a rimmed plate buried to the level of the soil, picking them up (using gloves) and tossing into a combination of H2O/rubbing alcohol, and/or picking them up (again with gloves) and transporting them elsewhere. Keep in mind that if you don’t transport them a sufficient distance, their built-in “homing” system will more than likely guide them back to your landscape, slowly, but surely.

So there you have it, a brief introduction to a snail’s life. For further information regarding these amazing creatures, visit www.snail-world.com/ or trec.ifas.ufl.edu/mannion/pdfs/GardenSnails. pdf.

Janetta Fox is a Lee County Master Gardener volunteer and member of the Garden Club of Cape Coral.