Three eyed snail?

[talisen]

I wasn't really sure to put this in growth, because this happened since birth (:

Well, in March I managed to hatch some eggs and a couple of months later I noticed one had a 'third eye' right between it's two normal eyes, It's fully functional like the other two but I'm just wondering if anyone else has encountered them before! :3

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[Deleted]

Thats well cool , Iv'e never seen 1 like that in my life, however iv'e seen one with 1 eye hehe

[crossless]

Hmmh.. I could have some kind of mutanted genes that made him/she look like that. There's sometimes one eyed or three eyes snails..

[lee2211]

Sept 11, 2010 13:45:03 GMT @laurencejordan2010 said:

Thats well cool , Iv'e never seen 1 like that in my life, however iv'e seen one with 1 eye hehe

It's not cool, it's unfortunate.
Poor snail, does it seem to affect it in any way?
What species of snail is it?

[ness]

I'm trying to look up snail mutations though, and although I seem to recall seeing something like this before i really don't know where.
It's fascinating though. Special little fellow
I doubt that the snail will be in any discomfort or that it would adversly affect it in any way, but you would be the best judge of that through your own observations of it.

[ness]

I will update this as I find more....
One Eyestalk thread petsnails.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=snailpictures&thread=9042&page=1

A snail with two tails petsnails.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=growth&action=display&thread=4305

A blind snail petsnails.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pests&action=display&thread=9687

[crossless]

I heard one case of one eye snail in Finland it lived happy normal life but shorter than normal ones.

[ness]

Ah here you are, this thread contains a picture of a three stalked snail, and a snail with a split stalk

petsnails.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pests&action=display&thread=9685

Oh and I missed the obvious sorry.
Near the bottom of this PetSnails web page are mutations that you may findinteresting, including the two pictures featured on the thread above.
www.petsnails.co.uk/care/breeding.html

[rosanna123]

there were 2 three eyed snails on ebay the other day, i was thinking of buying them

[ness]

Well I hope they've gone to a loving home, wherever they are. What species were they, out of interest?

(To the buyer.......)
If the buyer is a member on here please can I reqest some updates? Thanks

[talisen]

To answer your questions, he's just your regular Achatina Fuclica and it dosen't affect him at all, in fact, he's one of the biggest babies and is still able to roll it but I don't think he can see anything in it :/ (Not that it makes much of a difference x3)

It's werid to think that 1 eyed is more heard of! None of the babies have been sold yet, but I'm planing to sell some to the local pet shop next week :I

[Greta]

That's actually quite cool Ive seen one of these in Internet and also saw a snail with a weird shell it was a grove snail but its shell was really long and it said that what probably caused itwas a crack in the egg when it was born and the shell started to grow in a strange way but cool snail. i live in northern ireland and I've been looking for helix aspersa snails I've only found the baby ones but I'm desperate to find the adult ones any ideas where I can find them:)

[coyote]

Hi greta, try going outside on a damp night and looking underneath logs and leaves.

[Greta]

Oh thanks I finally found them found 4 helix aspersas and about 8 cepaea nemoralis they all are still youngsters but nearly fully grown about 2-3 cm long

[leila]

thats awesome, if its functional and doesnt seem to bother the little guy then id let it be and use it as a conversation starter

but if it seems to become something that is hurting his quality of life you can make a loop with some thin, clean string and lasso the extra eye and tighten the loop (you'll probably have to be really fast) and the eye will eventually loose blood flow and fall off (i have no idea how long that will take)... snails loose eyes all the time in the wild with no major complications, i think i heard somewhere that theres a 50/50 chance a normal eye will grow back, but if its a mutation i doubt it

[axoloa]

Sept 11, 2010 12:32:57 GMT talisen said:

I wasn't really sure to put this in growth, because this happened since birth (:

Well, in March I managed to hatch some eggs and a couple of months later I noticed one had a 'third eye' right between it's two normal eyes, It's fully functional like the other two but I'm just wondering if anyone else has encountered them before! :3

Ususaly a side affect of inbreeding lol. Not surgesting its your fault or anything (its perfectly legal in all countries to inbreed mollusc) Hope you have kept it... If you ever encounter another like this you should try breeding for them and maybe they will give that gene to the majority of their young.. You could start a new race lol.

[pinkunicorn]

Hehe, it's nicely in the centre of the head, too, making it look like it belongs there!

These mutations don't usually cause any problems to the animal, unless they prevent normal movement. I doubt it can be bred on to offspring, though, as they are usually caused by "wrongly executed" cell building commands in the embryonic stage. Although, it is a possibility that the snail embryo constructs more than two eyestalks and then destroys the others, leaving two stalks to develop in the final animal... such is seen in many animals.

Is anyone well versed in embryology of molluscs?

[axoloa]

Ahh I see (I think lol). I have never been great with science so what can and cant be carried by genes is not something I know much about :/ When I first started getting into the hobby I tried breeding a Helix Aspersa with my first GAL.. I felt an idiot when I was chatting to my Biology teacher about it and she said that crossing snail species is about as imposible as crossing a cat and a dog and the only way its posible is to splice them... (I just agreed with her but the fact is at this time I didnt even know what on earth splice meant, so I ignored her and tried it anyway) :/

It would be cool though all the same if you could breed a pair of 3 eyed snails and get a majority of 3 eyed offspring and im sure im not the only person who would think so lol. Im sure theirs plenty of opinons both way however and I can see how some people would think it was wrong to creat such species deliberatly.

In any case its amazing how this snail was born with a 3rd eye and I hope tailsen keeps this snail untill death and gets lots of enjoyment from keeping such an amazing creature

[saki114]

talisen, wish you luck with your snail

[rosiesnail2]

Must be so cool with a snail like that! I think its cute! Some people cute the off but they grow back in time so what's the point

[saki114]

rosiesnail2: I have no idea why people cut it off cuz having a third eyestalk doesn't HURT the snail. I would NEVER do that... its gross and horrid. I can think of it as cute if I want to ;D

[ness]

Agreed. I don't see any reason why cutting off an extra eye stalk could benefit the snail at all, it's not as if the thrid eyestalk would cause pain or disability in any way, so it does seem pretty cruel to snip it off in my opinion.

[saki114]

Sept 11, 2010 15:35:25 GMT crossless said:

I heard one case of one eye snail in Finland it lived happy normal life but shorter than normal ones.

I wonder why.

[pinkunicorn]

Probably a coincidence. Snails' length of life is individual, after all.

[jembolina]

Dec 15, 2011 5:14:12 GMT leila said:

but if it seems to become something that is hurting his quality of life you can make a loop with some thin, clean string and lasso the extra eye and tighten the loop (you'll probably have to be really fast) and the eye will eventually loose blood flow and fall off (i have no idea how long that will take)... snails loose eyes all the time in the wild with no major complications, i think i heard somewhere that theres a 50/50 chance a normal eye will grow back, but if its a mutation i doubt it

That sounds horrifying and incredibly painful.

Please don't do this.