Snails Have a Homing Instinct

[coyote]

Do not underestimate the humble snail. ;D

Snails 'have a homing instinct'
By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News

A 69-year-old amateur scientist has apparently discovered that her garden snails have a homing instinct.

The result has astonished some professionals who believe that snails are far too simple creatures to find their way home.

read more here.

[Johnnywho]

Yeah,
I remember my Grandad telling me something about that! (He likes to garden)
And I found some snails on the edge of this plant pot,
And he said "oh look more snails" (In a sarcastic voice) And then he said, I have an idea put all the snails into a bucket and take them over the park to release them then they wont be back, because I watched this thing on the television So I didn't want to go all the way to a park with a bucket of snails (It would look odd) So I just let them go in the alley

[coyote]

I know that snails can track calcium sources in the environment, and apparently they can track more than just that. I think snails have more attributes than people want to give them credit for.

[leila]

i think it may be an attribute of all mollusks... i had a banana slug that i had been keeping for a while and was devastated when i saw that i had forgotten to weigh down the tank lid one night and he had escaped, but a few days later i saw a slug with identical markings making its way up the side of the tank. im sure it was the same slug who had just wanted a brief vacation to his old home in the forest on the otherside of the driveway and then come back.

the same thing happened more recently with Bob, a slug i had collected a few days earlier to enter in a 4th of july slug race and he got out and i thought there was a chance he might come back but he never did, probably because i had had him for so little time that his "home" was still out in the forest

[pinkunicorn]

That reminds me of this adorable My Pet Slug blog where a banana slug too residence below a porch and the people of the house documented it. I see this in smaller scale in my leopards, they have their own spots in the terrarium unless another slug chases them away or I swap things around.

[latebloomer]

There are three slugs off white with darker grey markings which have been finding their way into the house for weeks now I have picked them up and taken them to the top of the garden and they might not be back the following day but they are always back the day after. There were 23 garden snails on the front door alone the other night. Its liberty hall for molluscs around here.