Post by Hannah-Bird on Apr 25, 2011 17:37:55 GMT
About a week and a half ago, I found four new snails in my sister's yard. Two are babies about the same size as Calvin, with one stripe like Ariel, one is a juvenile with five stripes about the same size as Lydia, and one is a five-stripe adult. I let my sister have (even though it's in the same tank and I still take care of it) the smallest of the four; she named her Philipa. The adult is named Sterling (does anybody watch Archer? ;D ), and the smaller one with five stripes is called Maggie.
A week ago I discovered that Lenore and Ariel had a clutch of their very own. They've already finished hatching; I didn't notice because Lenore laid the eggs in the potted plant. I was just going to leave them in with the adults, but a couple days later I found that a few of them were up on the lid and I didn't want to accidentally crush them sliding the lid around. I've been moving them to the mini-tank as I find them, and at this point I'm pretty sure I have them all. There are thirteen! I'm probably going to let most of them go in August, when they get too big, but I'm going to see if I can get any of my friends to become "snail-Mommies" and take them in first. It'll be interesting to see if the single stripe or five stripe trait is dominant.
Now I'm keeping a careful watch on the tank again: night before last Lenore and Sterling started going at it. I'm seriously starting to think that there is a hierarchy in that tank. Lenore has always been the one to lay eggs, and apparently she gets first mating rights as well. Ariel and Sterling have pretty much ignored one another so far. Has anyone heard of research having been done on snail social structure or "queen bee" dynamics? I'm thinking this might be something to look into...
In addition to all of that, the other day I found an orange slug. I'd never seen anything like it before, so I decided to temporarily house it. It's called a scarlet-mantled tail-dropper. I would keep it, because it's really cool looking, but I'm starting to run low on tank space. That and my family has started to give me grief about it; they've learned to love my snails, but apparently this does not extend to their shell-less cousins. So, that's my long-winded news update on my snaily family. Oh, also Bridget the banana slug is now an inch long when stretched out.
A week ago I discovered that Lenore and Ariel had a clutch of their very own. They've already finished hatching; I didn't notice because Lenore laid the eggs in the potted plant. I was just going to leave them in with the adults, but a couple days later I found that a few of them were up on the lid and I didn't want to accidentally crush them sliding the lid around. I've been moving them to the mini-tank as I find them, and at this point I'm pretty sure I have them all. There are thirteen! I'm probably going to let most of them go in August, when they get too big, but I'm going to see if I can get any of my friends to become "snail-Mommies" and take them in first. It'll be interesting to see if the single stripe or five stripe trait is dominant.
Now I'm keeping a careful watch on the tank again: night before last Lenore and Sterling started going at it. I'm seriously starting to think that there is a hierarchy in that tank. Lenore has always been the one to lay eggs, and apparently she gets first mating rights as well. Ariel and Sterling have pretty much ignored one another so far. Has anyone heard of research having been done on snail social structure or "queen bee" dynamics? I'm thinking this might be something to look into...
In addition to all of that, the other day I found an orange slug. I'd never seen anything like it before, so I decided to temporarily house it. It's called a scarlet-mantled tail-dropper. I would keep it, because it's really cool looking, but I'm starting to run low on tank space. That and my family has started to give me grief about it; they've learned to love my snails, but apparently this does not extend to their shell-less cousins. So, that's my long-winded news update on my snaily family. Oh, also Bridget the banana slug is now an inch long when stretched out.
