Pond life of the day: Water snails
Feb. 10th, 2012 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgI hope the presence of water snails in my pond is a sign of a healthy ecosystem. They've bred recently but I assume the fish will keep their numbers under control. That might explain their drop in appetite recently. Certainly the baby snails are well within mouthful range, and they strike me as something a carnivorous fish would really go for.
I've complained often enough that photographing live things is difficult because the damn things move, so we'll start with the still shots. This one shows the striations on the shell:
A snail, you'd think, would be manageable, but alas under the microscope these little things are quite speedy and very difficult to get into shot, focus on, and importantly keep in shot. I've caught this one in the act of trying to right itself, and it shows a surprising array of colours that usually appear as just a muddy brown:
The yellow blob at the bottom is actually the foot.
One solution to the movement problem is to turn the snail over on its back. Unfortunately snails have curving shells, so that doesn't really solve the mobility issue. But you do get a look at the squishy bits of the foot:
Have you ever sworn at snails? That weren't actually eating your garden plants? I have. Strike that off the bucket list. This is the best I could do to catch one on the run:
However! I was clearing out some weed and saw a tiny round speck about 1mm across that looked like it might be a baby snail, or at the very least a discarded shell:
And so it was, with little spots, but then it started to move!
Isn't it cute?
Both snails were returned to the pond, hopefully unharmed.
I've complained often enough that photographing live things is difficult because the damn things move, so we'll start with the still shots. This one shows the striations on the shell:
A snail, you'd think, would be manageable, but alas under the microscope these little things are quite speedy and very difficult to get into shot, focus on, and importantly keep in shot. I've caught this one in the act of trying to right itself, and it shows a surprising array of colours that usually appear as just a muddy brown:
The yellow blob at the bottom is actually the foot.
One solution to the movement problem is to turn the snail over on its back. Unfortunately snails have curving shells, so that doesn't really solve the mobility issue. But you do get a look at the squishy bits of the foot:
Have you ever sworn at snails? That weren't actually eating your garden plants? I have. Strike that off the bucket list. This is the best I could do to catch one on the run:
However! I was clearing out some weed and saw a tiny round speck about 1mm across that looked like it might be a baby snail, or at the very least a discarded shell:
And so it was, with little spots, but then it started to move!
Isn't it cute?
Both snails were returned to the pond, hopefully unharmed.
