Post by etana on Jul 29, 2014 17:14:35 GMT
My snails are being snail-sitted right now as I couldn't take them along to where I'm at, and I miss them very much, so here are a few funny pictures I had in my phone:
Sorry it's dark and blurry, but there's a rather twisted position of one of my Ariantas. (I since got rid of the soil and replaced it with moss.)
A baby Cepaea. So tiny!
Another Arianta. This picture is from the days when I still used soil, and all my Ariantas got themselves all covered up in it. But see why he's called Big Eyes?
He has much bigger eyeballs than anyone else! I lifted him up on the roof for photos, left the top hatch open, and he looked around for a little bit and then went back in by himself. I decided this meant he was happy enough with it, and was glad, as I was just a beginner with snails. 
Also, this poor fellow is quite neurotic and retracts easily. His nervousness looks even worse because you can so easily see his eyes shaking. He's also my fastest Arianta. Oh and he's made a LOT of sweet snaily love and, as a result, lots of babies with Old Grumpy (whose each and every feature is different to those of Big Eyes), and I hope they will have big eyeballs, too. So far it's hard to tell, as all baby snails seem to have big eyes.
These two Cepaeas had a strange "dance" going on - they mirrored each others' moves almost exactly for several minutes. As in, one would bend to the right, so would the other, etc. It nicely looks like it was a C. Nemoralis and C. Hortensis doing this, though I'm not counting on it - might be that the one looking like a Hortensis is just a younger Nemoralis!
Many of my snails went into aestivation before I left, complete with the sealed up shell and all, because it's been the hottest heat wave in 60 years and as Finns are more prepared for frost and snow than heat waves, there's currently no sensible way to reduce the heat. There's water and food available for them (it seems they briefly come out of their shells at nights, at least) and a lot of misting going on, so I hope they'll be all right. At least they're better off buried in the moss and being misted than being baked to death on sand or something.
Sorry it's dark and blurry, but there's a rather twisted position of one of my Ariantas. (I since got rid of the soil and replaced it with moss.)
A baby Cepaea. So tiny!
Another Arianta. This picture is from the days when I still used soil, and all my Ariantas got themselves all covered up in it. But see why he's called Big Eyes?
He has much bigger eyeballs than anyone else! I lifted him up on the roof for photos, left the top hatch open, and he looked around for a little bit and then went back in by himself. I decided this meant he was happy enough with it, and was glad, as I was just a beginner with snails. 
Also, this poor fellow is quite neurotic and retracts easily. His nervousness looks even worse because you can so easily see his eyes shaking. He's also my fastest Arianta. Oh and he's made a LOT of sweet snaily love and, as a result, lots of babies with Old Grumpy (whose each and every feature is different to those of Big Eyes), and I hope they will have big eyeballs, too.
So far it's hard to tell, as all baby snails seem to have big eyes.These two Cepaeas had a strange "dance" going on - they mirrored each others' moves almost exactly for several minutes. As in, one would bend to the right, so would the other, etc. It nicely looks like it was a C. Nemoralis and C. Hortensis doing this, though I'm not counting on it - might be that the one looking like a Hortensis is just a younger Nemoralis!
Many of my snails went into aestivation before I left, complete with the sealed up shell and all, because it's been the hottest heat wave in 60 years and as Finns are more prepared for frost and snow than heat waves, there's currently no sensible way to reduce the heat. There's water and food available for them (it seems they briefly come out of their shells at nights, at least) and a lot of misting going on, so I hope they'll be all right. At least they're better off buried in the moss and being misted than being baked to death on sand or something.
)
