Anyone notice their garden snails declining mentally?

[GailTheSnail]

Long time no post, hope y’all are doing well! Anyways I cannot find anything about this online, I have encountered a situation I am baffled by. One of my older snails (I estimate he’s about 2 years old) who’s very healthy and active recently began sleeping more than usual.

The other day he woke up after a week long nap and was acting very strangely. It appeared as though he was biting his friends in the area between their mantles and shells. No one was bubbling but one did go back in her shell and hasn’t come out since. The next time he did it, I was holding him and the other one and the other one instantly tried to get away from him, quickly crawling up my hand away (when he’d usually prefer his friends to crawling on me, so it indicated to me he was very uncomfortable)

I feel like he’s gone senile or something. This is not normal behavior for him at all. Anyone have experience with an older snail acting are strangely like this?

[pasi9]

That's very strange. I can't imagine it's senility, I don't think snails are that elderly at two years old. Many species can live years and years.

Some snails bite when they're trying to mate, but if he's also been sleeping a lot that's probably not the cause. It sounds like something is stressing him out maybe? Might be worth separating them and keeping a close eye on him.

[GailTheSnail]

Thanks for your reply. He continued abnormally long naps and never woke up again with the weird aggressive behavior. He did pass away early this morning however and I am devastated so I came here to read about grieving. He was the most popular snail I can ever remember having, everyone loved him and they’d take turns sleeping next to him when he’d do his long naps. I let them say goodbye to him, and the reactions were very emotional, I have no doubt they understood what was happening and felt sadness. Anyways just thought I’d update while I’m here. Hope everyone and their snails are well.