Snails Have Personalities

Snails Have Personalities

By: Maryn Johnson

Date: Fall 2024

Snails can be shy or bold, grouchy or social, they aren't just brainless animals. Snails are full of personality and can be amazing friends!

You might disagree with what I just said, but I can prove they have personalities in both scientific and non-scientific ways. I hope you find yourself agreeing with me by the end of this article.

According to the article “What Extroverts and Introverts Can Learn From Snails”, “Snails appear in shy and bold varieties.” They also discussed an experiment conducted to see if there were differences in snails’ behavior: snails with thinner shells were more shy, while the ones with thicker shells were bold. This was because the snails with thinner shells did not need as much energy to grow the shells, but with weaker shells they had to be more wary of predators. The ones with thicker shells had to find more food than the weak shelled snails because it took more energy to grow the shells. Since their shells were stronger they were able to be more bold.

Another article, “Individual boldness is Linked to Protective Shell Shape in Pond Snails” said something very similar. “Bold individuals that consistently engage in risky behaviors, to shy individuals that are consistently more unwilling to take risks.” and, “Our analyses find a strong relationship between risk-taking propensity and shell shape in this species, with bolder individuals exhibiting a more defended shell shape than shy individuals.” 

Many people have pet snails. One woman, Pepper Apollo, owns 150 snails. She is an expert, and she agrees that snails exhibit different personalities and emotions. To learn more about her, look at the video at the bottom of the article.  She's not the only one with some knowledge on my topic. I have taken care of snails for small amounts of time (when hanging outside), and seen how expressive they can be as well.

Now, many people don’t agree with me, at least before they read this article. One person in particular I found, (anonymous wiki user) said “Snails probably do not even have emotions, or at the very least not complex ones. Their nervous system is too simple.” 

I don’t agree. You have seen plenty of evidence, and if you've watched the video above, you've probably seen how expressive they can be. 

To solve this problem, we could support those who have extensive knowledge of snails. We can keep learning about them and their complex personalities/emotions to help set right the truth about snails.

Now that you know the truth about snails, that they aren't stupid, mindless animals, help anyway you can. That could be stopping someone from smashing a snail on the sidewalk or creating an article like mine to spread the truth about snail emotions. I hope now that you've read this you will share my opinion. I hope that after reading this article you see snails and their emotions in a different light. 

Sources:

What Extroverts and Introverts Can Learn From Snails

Boldness in individuals linked with shell shape protectiveness in pond snails

Youtube Video: The “Crazy Snail Lady” Raising 150 Pet Snails 

Post Comment: "Snails probably do not even have emotions, or at the very least not complex ones. Their nervous system is too simple"