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Nature in its raw – Snails Mating

By taking time, and looking about, allowing what we would not normally see, we will learn so much more.

Dr. Win Wenger calls it Side Bands. (click to read article). Stopping and notice noticing the small signals that often pass us by. Visit Project Renaissance,

Malcolm Gladwell in his book “blink writes about our senses which are telling us, giving us, information, but we do not recognize that this information is there influencing our decisions without us knowing. We do not notice noticing.

So as Win Wenger teaches, when something happens to us, it could be a change in our breathing rate, a sharp intake of breath, a quick glance to something. we should stop and recognize that something, what caught our attention, why did it catch our attention, notice noticing it and learn from it.

I call it Phillip’s Sausage. Being aware of what is in the peripheral vision or awareness. click to see article.

I had this experience some months ago in the UK when I noticed some strange ladybirds or bugs in the hedgerow outside the apartment in Norbiton Hall. They were Harlequin Ladybirds, (read Ladybirds the Answer), a newly introduced insect to the UK.
 

Harlequin Ladybirds

I was walking around the garden here in Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia, that I noticed a rather large snail shell, but it was something else that caught my eye. Something that I never seen before.


Snails Mating

There were in fact two snails, one on the back of the other and a strange white protrusion joining the two.

This is I realised something I had never witnessed before, the sex act of two snails. I had never considered how snails reproduced.

After a little research, I found the following facts.

Snails are what is called a hermaphrodite, that is they have both male and female sexual organs, or genital apparatus, and is located behind and to one side of the snails head.

Obviously, there is the requirement to have two snails to reproduce, and when one sexually active snail finds another, it will fire a calcified dart, (love dart), which will penetrate the other snail. This act will stimulate the other snail to receive and exchange the sperm sack or spermatophore to fertilise the eggs.

The eggs are produced internally, and about one month later, the snail will lay eggs (40 – 60), possibly underground, after which at about 14 days the eggs will hatch.

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