Sex and the single snail? Not quite, it still needs a horny mate...

What's so interesting about snails? How about this snippet:

Huge, slimy snails from Africa recently overran a Miami (Florida, USA) suburb. Thousands of the giant African snail (Achatina Fulica) variety -- which can grow up to 20cm, or nearly eight inches -- have been scaring residents, leaving slimy trails and a foul odour when they die, and chomping up local plants. They also carry a health risk: they carry a parasite known as the rat lungworm that can enter the central nervous system and cause nausea, headache and nerve damage.

Snails are dual-sex, and hence can proliferate. The last time giant African snails surfaced in south Florida was in 1966, when a boy smuggled just three of them from Hawaii and set them free in his garden. They quickly started breeding, and it took almost a decade and a million dollars to get rid of them all. Now it's deja vu!

Googling for "snail facts" led to 7,030,000 entries! Here's a pretty cool link, which lists 66 facts about snails:

http://www.madaboutsnailbooks.com/facts.asp

I won't itemise all 66 here, but just a few:

* Snails are shellfish, belonging to a group called MOLLUSCS, just like oysters and clams.

* The shell protects it from danger. It grows with the snail and the shell a land snail is born with will stay in the middle of its shell for all of its life.

* A snail has a soft body that is long and slimy. The shell that protects it sits upon its back.

* Land snails have many different kinds of coloured shells. An Apple Snail for example has a yellow shell and an African Land Snail has different bands of brown, pink and cream.  Some snails have very pretty shells.

* Snails are both male and female and are called HERMAPHRODITES so they produce both eggs and sperm, but they need another snail to be able to make baby snails.

* When land snails are ready to lay eggs they make a nest of up to 4 centimetres deep in the soil. They do this by digging a hole in the soil with the tail end of their foot (pond snails on the other hand do not lay their eggs, but carry them around until they hatch).

* When the eggs have been laid they will HATCH after 2-4 weeks.

* The baby snails are born with tiny SHELLS on their backs and bodies that look almost see-through.

* Any eggs that have not hatched will be eaten by the other babies.  This will give them an early feed of CALCIUM to help their own shells grow strong.

* Garden snails are a DELICACY in some countries.  In France people like to eat them cooked with garlic and oil. African Land Snails are also popular in West Africa. Other countries where people like to eat snails include Portugal, Greece, Italy and Malta.

* The Ghana Tiger Snail is the largest land snail and can grow up to 30 centimetres – that’s about 12 inches.

* The largest Giant African Land Snail ever recorded was 15 inches long from head to tail.

* The biggest of all the snails belongs in the sea -- it’s an Australian marine type called a SYRINX ARUANUS. It can grow up to 30 inches long and weighs 40 lbs!