SAMMY%20SNAIL

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SAMMY SNAIL
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A snails life.

• All snails begin like this.
• They begin as eggs .
• When they hatch out they are soft but even then
  they have a soft shell that hardens quickly.

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BURIED EGGS.

• You can see three small balls we think they are
  snail eggs.

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Weird but true

• Every adult snail can lay eggs. Snails are
  hermaphrodites .
• The snail lays about 50-80 eggs in a nest, about
  3cm. deep in the soil.
• They hatch out in about 3 weeks.
• The temperature must be about 12C for eggs to
  hatch.

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The smallest snail we found.
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Life for one year.

• The tiny snail has a soft shell at first then it
  hardens
• It just eats and eats for the next year. The
  shell gets thicker.
• They hibernate in winter and in dry weather.They
  eat mostly at night and love damp warm weather.

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Who has been eating my flowers?
Snails are plant eaters only.
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Different sizes.

• We found these five different size shells in our
  gardens.
• They range from a few months to 3years.

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Length

• It is hard to measure an adult snail .
• On average it is about 70mm. long.
• Baby snails are about 5 mm. long .

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An adult snail
This is an adult garden snail.

• It can live for up to five years .
• The best time to find them is May to
  September.
• It takes one year for a snail to get to adult
  size.
• The proper name for a snail is HELIX
  ASPERSA.
• It is a gastropod which, in latin, means
  belly foot.

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How to recognise an adult.?

• An adult snail at about one year old begins to
  grow a lip at the base of the shell.
• It looks like a soldiers helmet.
• Shells have an inner layer.

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Four horns

• The top two are eyes. They are about a centimetre
  long. If you touch an eye it can pull it in
  instantly.
• The bottom two are shorter and always close to
  the ground. It can sense vibrations and smell
  with them.

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THE EYE (x10)

• The eyes are on the tops of its horns. We dont
  know how good their eyesight is but they always
  know the difference between light and shade .

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Retractable Eye

• A snail can pull in its eye at any time.
• One or both together.
• This protects the eye and can keep the pupil
  moist.
• It has no eye lash or eye lid.
• It can also retract its lower feelers.
• It also makes it easier to squeeze into its
  shell.

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Social Creatures

• Snails are social creatures.
• They dont mind climbing on top of each other.
• You will very seldom find them alone .
• They will always share their space with each
  other.

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Great pets

• Snails are not afraid of people. They will nest
  quite happily in childrens hands.Sammy is
  Niamhs pet.

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The shell.

• The snail says alas!
• The snail says alack!
• Why must I carry my house on my back?
• Good question!

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Two Reasons

• Its biggest fear is that its body will dry out
  in the sun and wind.It needs liquid for the
  slime.
• It cant run away quickly from its enemies so it
  needs a place to hide instantly if it is in
  danger of being attacked.

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How does the shell grow?

• The snail makes its shell bigger by adding
  layer after layer of new shell at the opening of
  the shell.
• The ridges are like the rings on trees.
• Its like a slinkey where each ring is slighty
  bigger than the last.
• You can see the layers here.

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A shady place.
Snails hide in places like this during the
bright days. They can stay this way for more than
a week in the shade if the weather is too warm
and dry.They dont have to eat every day.Wet
nights are heaven for them.
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Day or night?

• How does a snail inside a shell know if it is
  day or night?
• This is what it is like inside a shell in
  sunlight.
• We shone a light though the shell in a microscope.

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No two shells have the same pattern.
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Snowy mountain.

• This is not a snowy mountain. This is a
  close up of an old snail shell.The shell
  has been bleached by the sun and the white
  colour shows what it is made of.(calcium)

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Regular Whorls.

• Of all the shells we tested we found that each
  whorl is roughly three times wider than the last
  one in adults.
• If you draw a diagonal line from the centre to
  the lip you will nearly always get 2mm.
  6mm.18mm. for the outside three whorls.

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Snail graveyard

• This is an old slate leaning up against the south
  facing wall of a flower garden .
• All these snail shells are empty. They may have
  died during the cold weather of winter or maybe
  of old age.
• This slate has been here for at least 20 years.

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Eventually

• Shells will lose their stickiness and fall to
  the ground.
• Sometimes snails eat bits of these old snail
  shells
• Hens do the same thing with egg shells.

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How heavy is a shell.

• A snail shell may feel light to you but if you
  were a snail your shell would be about
• 25-30 of your total weight.

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Lighter than an egg shell
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Shell volumes
We crushed the shells We measured their volumes
like this.
6.c.c
1.8c.c.
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Light but strong
This shell was able to hold up a 6.5 kg sledge
when placed on top of the shell. But if you
place the shell on its side and place even half
that weight on it it will crush easily.
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On its side

• This is what happened when we placed the shell on
  its side we put 1.8kg hatchet on the edge.
• It crushed easily.
• The birds still find it hard to crush the shell.

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Central pillar

• This pillar from top to bottom is what gives the
  shell its strength.
• It is not half as strong from side to side.
• This is what allows the bird to break the shell.

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The Anvil.

• They have learned a trick.
• They use a stone to bash the shell against.
• It has a sharp edge which makes it easier to
  break the shell.
• Even so we have found only the remains of small
  shells there.

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How a snail comes out ?

• They dont screw out or in.
• They just fold out and in.
• The top third of the snail is like a camels hump
  but it is stuck to the top spirals of the
  shell.It is never exposed.
• If you find an empty shell its owner is dead.

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Emerging Snail

• This is how a snail looks just before it emerges.
• It can be very hard to get them to come out, but,
  if you dip the base in water they will come out
  shortly.

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Wakey! Wakey!

• First two folded flaps come out and open.

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Is it safe to come out?

• Then the head appears from under the edge of the
  shell.
• You will only realise this when a little horn
  pops out.
• This is a quick peep.
• One eye first.

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Unfolding.

• Next comes the second eye.
• The body
• unfolds more.

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Almost Open

• Now he is ready to put out his tail.
• Once his tail is out the rest is easy.

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Finally out

• This is what he is like when he is out.
• You can just see his curved mouth.
• You can see how moist his body is.

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OUT FOR A WALK

• Snails are not stiff like sausages. They can
  stretch and bend and twist any way they want.
• They move more like an octopus than any other
  creature.

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Slime

• A snail can not live without slime.
• It needs it to smooth the path for itself.
• It also stops tiny creatures from taking a juicy
  bite.
• The slime hardens in contact to air.

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Trails

• They can follow their own trails back to their
  hiding places because the trails can last a long
  time.
• They can follow other trails to meet their
  friends.

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Sticky slime

• One day Sammy was exercising. He climbed up on a
  20 gram weight.We lifted Sammy,the 20 grams came
  with it.
• Snails can stick to anything in any position.

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Super glue

• When the slime hardens after a few hours it is
  like super glue
• You can see some hard slime in the middle of the
  picture

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Glue test

• It took a force of 150 grams. (1.5 Newtons) To
  remove the shell from the wall.
• This did not harm the snail
• One shell took 2 Newtons to remove

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Gluey Rim

• The snail was not harmed by this pull because the
  snails body is above the gluey rim

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How Snails Breathe

• Snails breathe through a hole in the bottom of
  their bodies.They need to breathe all the time
  even when they hibernate.We got this picture from
  a book. SNAIL WATCH IT GROW
• By Barrie Watts

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How fast can a snail move?

• This is not easy to find out because------
• They might not move when you want .
• They dont go in a straight line.
• This is how we solved the problem

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Tracking the snails

• We kept a primrose leaf in front of them as bait
  to keep them moving .
• We placed them on a white sheet and follow their
  trail with a red pencil
• We timed four snails for 5 minutes each

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Snail trail.

• We placed pipe cleaners on the red line and cut
  and bent them to follow the line.Then it was only
  a matter of straightening them out and measuring
  the straight length.

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Five minute walk
RESULTS

• Mr F----------30cm
• S2-------------38.5cm
• Buttercup----42.5cm
• Bubbles------38.5cm _________________
• Total---------149.5cm
• Average-- 37.5cm
• 7.5cm /minute
• 4.5M. Per hour

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How strong is a snail?

• Snails has no arms and only 1 foot. The only way
  we could think of testing its strength was to
  measure what it could pull.
• We started by making a harness for the snail
  shell.We attached a few grams to the end of the
  harness.Each cube is a gram.
• Sammy easily pulled 46 grams on his first day.

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Adding the grams

• In training we added a gram each time.
• We placed a black pipe cleaner directly behind
  the load.
• If a gap appeared it meant that he had pulled it.

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Could you pull such a load?
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A horse of a snail.

• This is Sammys record pull.
• 80 grams
• He pulled 9 times his weight across a desk.
• He might even have pulled more.
• For its size a snail is much stronger than a
  horse.

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Press photograph

• After his record pull Sammy posed for the camera.
• We swear he even smiled.
• We put him back in the box for a nice well earned
  rest.

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Cart pulling

• A horse has a cart and can pull about one
  thousand kg plus a cart
• We decided to put a cart on Sammy. We borrowed
  the infants tractor trailor.
• Gradually as he got used to it we increased the
  load.

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Spectators

• Everybody was very interested in what he could
  pull.
• After a week he was getting better and the loads
  were getting bigger.
• Here he is pulling110 grams in the trailer.

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Official Poster.

• This is Sammys official fan club poster.
• Here he is posing before his record breaking pull
  of
• ---------------?

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Trailer and load
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Personal trainer

• This is Keith.
• He is Sammys trainer.
• He makes sure the harness is fitted safely and
  that Sammy is not harmed in any way.
• He was sure Sammy could pull a bigger load if
  there was no crowd watching. Keith tested him
  again in a quiet moment.

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A lettuce leaf is a great help

• With a lettuce leaf in front and his two friends
  cheering him on he breaks all records again!
• He pulled 246 grams.

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Stunt man

• Is there no end to Sammys talents?
• Here he is climbing over a kitchen devil knife
  for some lettuce.
• This was his last public appearance.
• Well, Sammy retired to a sunny wall garden.He
  doesnt do interviews now.

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What happened to Sammy?

• He lives high above a juicy flower patch.
• He sleeps all day and eats and talks to his old
  friends at night.
• We often check on him but dont disturb him.
• We always know where to find him .

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This was Connors idea. We hope he enjoys his
retirement.
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Happy Retirement Sammy!
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Keith,Conor,Niamh,Niamh 2006