eggs!!!

[rebecca]

my african land snail i laying egg does this mean it is pregnent?? it does not have a patner and has never lived with another snail!!!! can they lay egs if they are not pregnent???
help

[Paul]

Snails can self-fertilise...

Also, they can store sperm for 18 months or even longer so if it's been near another snail a while back that may explain it.

Sometimes they lay "test" eggs (usually sterile) before they lay a full clutch so what has happened isn't unusual.

It may proceed to lay a clutch that could either be sterile or fertile.

[coyote]

I'm surprised that a snail could lay sterile eggs, because of all the calcium it would need for something not resulting in offspring. It seems like a misappropriation of calcium, even if the test eggs are very few. Wouldn't that diminish the calcium available to form fertilized eggs?

[Paul]

I guess it would diminish the calcium. There are two issues here I suppose. The first is these "test" eggs and the second is laying a sterile clutch. Speaking to the former, I've seen snails lay a solitary egg or a few before laying properly. In fact, 4 or 5 days ago one of my Helix pomatia laid 3 eggs on the surface of the soil. They seemed slightly baggy. I covered them but I doubt they will hatch. Today I've noticed the same snail burrowing to lay eggs. I've heard other reports of it but I have no idea why it happens. It may be a biological necessity to prepare the body for egg creation and laying. Perhaps by sacrificing a few sterile or incomplete eggs, it stops otherwise fertile eggs from being damaged by the body. Perhaps the eggs help open up the pathway for the eggs.

As for sterile clutches, we have many reports of snails laying clutches that don't hatch. That could be mistaken for situations where conditions prevent hatching but the same people report hatching clutches weeks or months later. And we also know that old snails still lay eggs but the viability drops.

As we know, snails are vigorous breeders and I wonder if their hormones are so strong they literally make the snail try without fertilising or even by self-fertilising in rare cases. It's documented that snails can take and store sperm from multiple partners and then choose which to fertilise the eggs with so there is a certain amount of a "conscious" process to it. By that I mean, snails seem to have more control over this than other animals. I wonder if it's this fact that allows them to try if you like, rather than it being a completely automatic process like it would be for a female mammal who's just been fertilised.

[zoinks]

Is this rare or common? I recently had two snails together who were prolific breeders until one died. I have seen no eggs since and he has been on his own for about 3 weeks now. Should I be wary?