Consider the Snail
By Kathy Bleam
“The role of the infinitely small in nature is infinitely great.” Louis Pasteur
The point of view that there is no Designer in the Universe, Nobody
who cares for the likes of bumbling people like me has never quite resonated
with me. I think it is the small things that often hold the most compelling
evidence for me.
Like last summer, while vacationing at the beach, I visited a bookstore
looking for some light reading. Looking through the bookshelves, I noticed
the book, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. This
little book shouted at me and for some strange reason I found myself unable
to put it down, so I bought it.
This is a true story of a woman who contracts a disease, which pretty
much confines her to her bed. A friend stops by to visit her and brings some
violets from nearby woods with a little snail in the dirt under the plants. At
first, the author wants nothing to do with the snail, as she can’t possibly take
care of a creature in her physical state.
Gradually, as she watches the snail day by day, she becomes attached
to the tiny pet. This moves her to do some research on snails which she also
includes in the book:
A snail’s shell is a brilliant accomplishment of architecture. The radius of the
spiral increases exponentially as it progresses, fitting the definition of a logarithmic or
equiangular spiral. P.61
As a snail grows. Its mantle secretes material at the shell opening, thus
lengthening and widening its house by increments to keep up with its expanding body
size. P. 63
Their shells can repair themselves. If a snail’s shell gets inured, a repair can be
made quickly. New shell material is secreted by the mantle, and where there was once a
crack, a scar appears, looking much like a skin scar. Page 65
About slime:
Slime is the sticky essence of a gastropod’s soul, the medium for everything in its
life: locomotion, defense, healing, courting, mating, and egg protection. Nearly one third
of a snail’s daily energy went into slime production. Page 71
“Upon this slime, as upon a kind of carpet, the snail proceeds. The wave-like contractions
of a snail’s foot are so delicately adjusted…that the creature can crawl with ease and
comfort over a knife-edged surface. P. 72
Snails will often reuse their own or another snail’s trail in order to save on slime
production. By detecting pheromones in a trail, they can determine whether it leads to
foe, friend, or potential mate. P. 75
During the summer months, if conditions become too dry, windy, or hot, or if
food supplies are limited, a snail will go into a kind of dormancy called estivation. It
climbs up a plant, tree, or wall to be away from the earth’s heat and beyond reach of
predators of floodwaters. Finding a safe place, it attaches itself firmly with mucus,
usually with the shell opening facing upward, which may alert it to weather changes.
Then it seals up its entrance with a temporary door made of mucus. This storm door, or
epiphragm, protects it from shifts in temperature and humidity. A snail may estivate for
weeks or months, or even several years. P. 103-104
In the water, when life is easy and there are no crayfish around to threaten
the snail, it usually lives only three to five months and grows to only one sixteenth
of an inch. But if crayfish are around to threaten and eat the snails, they will grow
two to three times as large and live two to three times as long. This not only helps
ensure that the snail population continues, but it also means that there are more
snails reproducing when their population is threatened.
http://www.creationmoments.com/radio/transcripts/well-designed-snails
Studying the snail and all the intricacies involved in its design, is there a
doubt that there is an Architect behind its design?
A clip of an ocean dwelling snail, for your enjoyment.
http://www.viddler.com/v/fd8f0d72 video of a Bright Yellow Skin Sulawesi Snail