Don’t go crawling off in every direction! Phoebe, don’t lick that, it might be salty! Hannah, stop sliming your sister, I’ve got my eye on you! And I’ve got my other eye on you, Margot — get back up here this instant! (OK, not exactly instant, but soon.)
Karen H. says: “Found these teeny munching ponies in a dalia plant in the garden. Some are so small they are translucent!”
truly cute!
Awwwwwwwwwww Ewwwwwwwwwww Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!
How I exactly felt.
Ditto.
Margot the (potential) escargot? Nice.
Margot Escargot…hilarious
That has to be the first line of a song.
isn’t there a way to squeeze in “and they got in their little ‘S’ car and went?”
LOOK AT THAT ESSS– aw, never mind.
Bay-bee snails!! Bay-bee snails!!
Wow. This is a first for me. Thank you, Karen!
Snalio Iglesias has grown up, settled down, and had kids.
If they were in my garden, they wouldn’t be there for long.
I know, right? Sorry, these little guys are the enemy of all gardeners. I would stomp them. NOT cute.
well, look at it this way: some people can’t look at rats, bunnies, and mice the way other people can, so this is just one of those “next!” moments on cuteoverload.
although stomping on a snail is revolting. i would fling it over the fence and hope it didn’t get flung back.
But they would come back under their own steam . . . later . . .
Ewwwwww – they are cute but I don’t think I would touch them.
Actually, most land snails are hermaphrodites, so they can’t have sisters or brothers – only siblings. So Hannah would really be Hannah/Henry, Phoebe Phoebe/Peter, and Margot Margot/Michael .
Victor/Victoria
Was going to say that too! Snails don’t have a gender or rather have both genders.
Have you ever seen slugs mate? It’s actually really pretty. They hang upside down and twirl around each other. Youtube it.
Um, no.
Ditto. I think Microsmos documentary has it.
Snail-pr0n pusher!
LOL!
I haven’t. Will Youtube that for sure!! #oddstuff
Shell count! Everyone sound off!
Eeeek! Looks just like what I found in my spinach salad last week!
Erm, these little snailios are very tiny and cute and make me go Awwwww, but I would NOT want to find them in my spinach salad! Then I would say, Ewwwwww!
Reminds me of my aunt who had 8 kids, you could not have a normal phone conversation with her, every second phrase out of her mouth was like that mama snail. Linda get you brother off the washing machine! Diane stop poking Claudette!
Brian don’t eat that!
i am the youngest of seven. sounds perfectly normal to me
Or calling younger siblings by older siblings’ names?
My mom called my 7-year-old niece by my name the other day. Made us both go Aroo?
My mum used to rattle off all our names, sometimes including pets.
Mind you, I can’t talk, I just called my cat by my son’s name.
Our parents had two daughters, but my mother always managed to call us by the wrong name. Whoever was closest usually answered. I later discovered I was the same way with my cats. It must be a “mother” thing.
Oh my gosh! My mom used to do that when she was flustered. She would call out everyone’s name before she said the correct name to the correct person. Even the cat was included. So for instance, trying to address my sister she would say something like: Dang it! (dang it was the best my mom could do as far as cussing goes) “StephanieCremora(darn)I mean, LESLIE!”
Starlinguk, I’m 42 and my poor dad still rattles off all of our names when he calls me, even my brothers’! And now there are 10 grandchildren, too. Fugettabodit!
Stephen Colbert, youngest of 11, reports same phenomenon.
I keep getting my daughter and my sister’s name mixed up. Probably, because my daughter is exactly like my sister. Freaky? I could tell you tales!
praise be to the lowly snail. They have a VERY IMPORTANT job to do, in the scheme of things. (ecologically speaking; darling little decomposers of the planet’s biosystem). I don’t kill them, just encourage them to live elsewhere, such as cabbage leaves near the compost pile.
A great thought, Evie. And in addition — they are quite beautiful. Just another illustration of the concept that everything has it own beauty, for the person who is able see it, which to me seems a worthy goal to aspire to.
My dad also encouraged the snails in his garden to live elsewhere – he flicked them into the waste ground next door with a spoon!
One thing that CO has done for me is to help me see the cute in non-traditionally-cute animals.
awwww… that’s nice.
I put them into the compost bin, on the basis that they will be happy. i have had some very odd critters emerging from time to time, usually with no colouring, or white with swirly green spots.
Can anybody tell me if I’m doing wrong putting them into the compost bin?
Buddy system! I told you all to use the buddy system!
Mr Gilbreth, is that you?
Great job, NTMTOM!
That’s adorable, and hilarious, NTMTOM. The hovertext!
Snails are only cute in pictures. If I ever saw them in real life I would pretty much freak out. They also crawl much faster than you think o_o
But I digress. These are tiny little cuties
I DO enjoy the swirly design on their shells !!!
*places Nerdy Schoolmarmish spectacles down nose*
*peers at assembled students, across top of spectacles*
Once when me’ ma’ wanted One of Us Dang Kids but didn’t stop to think through, WHICH one it was (“Steve” or “Sue”) that she needed, she was at the back door and ended up hollering (use “Old Broad” voice here) “STUE”!!!!!!
– Famous Thomas Family Tales,
Jacksonville Fla Division.
Enquiring minds want to know. ..Who answered? Steve or Sue?
A MOST excellent question, Gigi!!!
] Tomas were not Enquiring Minds, b/c none of us evair asked that detail. If Mamacita still retains the answer, I’ll letcha know.
Evidently Los Hermanos
[and sisters -- but I can remember the Espanol for "brothers" but cannot recall the word for "sisters
(Mamacita esta 81 ahora, y her 82nd Bday is in this next 30 days, so …….?????)
Thanks for playing “Thomases R Us”, Gigi!!!
)
(I really will ask her
Hermanas. Or, just hermanos includes boys and girls…….I think.
Correct on both counts.
Signed,
It’s been a while since High School Spanish
Yeah, it just takes one “hermano” to turn “las hermanas” into “los hermanos.”
reminds me of this photo I took a couple of summers ago – soooooo tiny!
http://squee.icanhascheezburger.com/2010/01/27/cute-baby-animal-strawberry-snails-forever/
Aw, I didn’t know baby snails were so cute!! Random quasi-relevant anecdote for you: When my brother was probably about 3 years old, my mom was working in her garden while he was playing around the yard. He runs up to her, so excited, and yells “Piece jelly!”. He holds out his hand, which has a SLUG in it, and prompty tries to eat this antenna-ed “piece of jelly”, while my mom freaks out and stops him.
YIKES
Which proves little kids will eat anything at least once.
OMG I HATE SLUGS! I HAD ONE IN MY HAIR ONCE!
EEEEEEEEEE!!!1!
…sorry [deep breath] …
Do tell!
I still shudder. As kids, we were camping out in the backyard, running around, it must have fallen out of a tree or something, never really figured it out, I certainly was not rolling around on the ground… [shudder again]
It’s funny, isn’t it, that slugs are kind of yucky but put a shell on them, and their cuteness goes up! Maybe it’s because a snailio has much less – un – slimy body showing.
… i don’t feel so good … *blurp*
Those are adorables!
So why is it when they have shells they are “cute” snails but when they are without shell they are gross slugs? Or is a scientific person going to tell me they are not the same? We only get the slugs around here.
Judging from Wikipedia, they’re related, but not all slugs are even in the same family, much less the same family as snails. (They share the kingdom, phylum, class, and order).
Some of the sea slugs (apparently nudibranch are NOT sea slugs, but related) are kind of cool looking: check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aglajidae.
@FB: Was there supposed to be more than the 7 second intro: “The More You Know”? I thought there would be an informational video on slugs/snails.
Oh, and @Brandi: “nudibranch” SNORT! Sea slugs are cool. Snails are cool. The slugs in my yard, not so much.
@ Jane:
per Request:
(PS: the opening of this video features a ….CU***BER!!!!!)
snicker at your spelling of cu***ber…
A fun slime fact: If you see a solid slime trail glinting in the sun, it was made by a slug. If the line is dotted, a snail was there! Apparently they move like little inch-worms under their shell.
Yay for fun slime facts!!!
I always see the solid ones.
wow!! who knew, that there are fun slime facts???
We get big fat slugs here (not sure what kind of slugs they are) and I think they’re cute! I always get excited when I spot one. Maybe I’m weird!
Yes, maybe you are….. (j/k) :0
Hhhaaa!! Weird a little maybe! When I find them in my garden I too like to have a look at them. Especially the bright orange ones and their little hole in the back. Then I actively encourage them to leave my garden! I don’t kill them, I put them in the next door part of the terrain where nobody lives. Of course they come back, but I just keep putting them on the terrain. It’s not like there are millions of them.
A friend of ours who was a very big animal person (of all types) used to throw slugs out of his garden into another part of the yard. When we said, they’re just going to come back, he replied, I figure if they go to all that trouble and effort to make it back, they deserve to be here. I said, it’s not like they have anything else to DO all day!
And when they come back, they slime up to him and say “What the hell was that about?”
Yes, DEFINITELY you are.
Good for you! I’m trying to work on being less hypocritical that way. I accidentally stepped (well, ran over) a slug in my bare feet once… It’s a little hard to forget that experience. Ew. And now I would also feel bad about squishing him. Sigh.
[shudder]
Kind of like how hair is beautiful and soft and sensual and luxurious and pettable when it’s part of a group attached to a loved one’s head, but if just ONE gets free and gets in the soup, it instantly becomes the most disgusting thing in the universe?
Exactly. And is it weird that finding cat hair in my food isn’t such a big deal but finding human hair (even my own) makes me gag?
Now that you point it out, that does seem weird, but it’s so true. I have no problem knowing I’m consuming cat hair every day, but if i realize a hair of mine is in my food I freak out.
The commercials for the new sitcom “Two Broke Girls” bug me to no end because both of the girls in question are portrayed wearing waitress uniforms and long, flowing, loose hair. Everywhere I ever waited tables made us put our hair up or pull it back if it was long.
and hairnets when I worked in the cafeteria during college. Can you say, Oh so attractive?
WOW!! I have the exact same ‘problem’!! A short cat hair in my food is bearable, but a human hair (mine or someone else’s) – puuuuuuuuke! I won’t finish that dish!
And yes, all those cooking shows and flowing hair – criminel! Thinking of Nigella Lawson. Love her show, but I’m constantly watching that hair…….
LOL! awesome!
Slugs can climb up your drainpipe.
SUCH a fantastic post NTMTOM! Hilarious. And these little snalios are adorable. I’ve never seen a whole brood before! Cute cute cute.
How does a baby snail come to be? Does it hatch from an egg, or have a larval stage, or what? Enquiring minds are not interested in work right now; they’d rather hear from the CO scientific contingent.
Would this fall under the skillset of The Bug Man??? Prolly not.
Hmmmm….. “I wonder, wonder, who ….”
["b'doo.... WHO??? Who wrote the book on" Snails....]
Tiny little round eggs! (I have a snail colony at work. Really I’m in love with all invertebrates, not just the bugs.)
Thank you for the information. Too cool. Really!!
Eggs. Then teeny eeny perfect miniature snails. Both parents get preggers and lay eggs in a big clutch together, so if it’s in a protected place, like a cozy flowerpot, you can have hundreds hatch out in a day.
For a new perspective on snails in all their wonderment, read The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elizabeth Tova Bailey. Delightful!
Quoted in Bailey’s book, from “The Biology of Terrestrial Molluscs” by Tony Cook:
“The right thing to do is nothing, the place to do it is in a place of concealment, and the time to do it is as often as possible.”
Is this applicable only to molluscs or does chocolate count?
Yes, tiny little white-ish/transparent eggs that the adult snail lays on the ground or digs into. They then form into tiiiiiiiiny sort of transparent snails and grow and change colour. I once took wanted to take some snail eggs from my aunt’s garden home all the way to where my family was living at the time, but my mum didn’t allow it… I was not happy!
For Fird Birfle, Las Hermanas are your sisters.
Muchos Gracias, ^oo^ !!!
LOVE THIS! TOO MUCH!! Makes the world seem like a better place if only for a few moments of snail bliss…..
Snails vs. slugs … what the shell is the difference??
But seriously, this brings back fond memories, as I used to have a giant “snail jar” that started with one big-ish snail, and ended up with an arduous weekly cleaning once I noticed pin-sized babies in there. (Think toothpicks, rubber gloves and sludge!) I have photos JUST LIKE THIS, though my snails were not so … opalescent? Pretty. I’m jealous.
In Vermont we had bright orange slugs! I mean, they were a really great sort of luminous apricot colour with purple innards showing through. They seemed to enter the house by osmosis, too. Never a slug knocking politely on the door, just…you’d stumble into the bathroom for an early morning pee and there’d be a slug oozing around like s/he owned the place. Kind of spooky.
Back to snail eggs, do they emerge with a teensy shell, or does the shell develop later? Too lazy to look it up when I can just appeal to CO’s collective genius.
Oh and thanks for the book rec (wild snail eating). I just put it on my library list, but I’ll have to wait because someone else has it out now. It’s nice to know there’s enough interest in snails that I’m on the waiting list.
Really! That’s so great! And enjoy … I’ve been wanting to start a snailarium ever since reading this little volume. (And release them back into the “wild” eventually, too.)
ohmygoodnessgraciousme.
I di-unt know that Theresa was shock-able!!!
we had bright yellow slugs in northern california. i actually sort of miss them now
Banana Slugs!
What a difference a shell makes! Slugs make me wanna barf, but I loove snalios. What the heck, nature? Why you gotta make mobile snot goobers without shells? Clearly you understand the rules of cuteness…
LOL mobile snot goobers…
HAW!
They’re so tiny and cute…(but still kinda gross)
They’re not so cute when you find them EATING YOUR BABY CARROTS!
That’s why many authors recommend always planting 10% more than you need for various critters to eat. Plus patrol your garden as often ast possible, including night, to hand pick unwanted diners and take them away to let them go. Personally, I find both snails and slugs very cute.
Good thing she has 360 degree mobilized eyeballs:
“Hey Mom, look at me!”
“No me!”
“Hey mommy, lookit what I can do!”
“What’s over here, Mom?”
“Mom, tell him to get off me!”
When my kids were younger, I had them 95% convinced that Mom’s actually do have eyes in the back of our heads. I never thought of “360 degree mobilized eyeballs”. Now THAT would be as usefull as an extra hand. Espesh on road trips
Mad-Eye Moody’s eye would be handy….
They’re very beautiful, aren’t they? Who knew?!?
People really love snails!
http://wins.failblog.org/2011/10/23/epic-win-photos-snail-safety-win/
YAY for bright snails!!
So cool, katie!
1. I don’t know that much about snails. So could it be that the kids could, literally, you know, stick together, with some snail slime stuff? Or does snail slime have the opposite (think WD40) property?
2. Ask me about my very creepy encounter with sneaky GIANT SNAILS on the south coast of Victoria, Australia.
Theresa, would you please tell us about your very creepy encounter with sneaky GIANT SNAILS on the south coast of Victoria, Australia?
skippymom: you are SO cooperative, ma’am !!!!
Of course I am. But it seems she was just teasing us.
perhaps ’tis simply a Time Warp, and she’s off at the moment,
attending an Opera.
Signed,
“Film at Elebenty”.
OK. Years ago. I’m with my BF of the moment, who happened to be an Aussie, and grew up around there, but never paid much attention to wildlife. We got a book about local critters, and read for the first time about the Giant Otway Black Snail which was huge — and carnivorous– and for some reason, we thought this was hilarious, and every so often we would say something like “Make sure you check around for the Giant Otway Black Snail, hahaha” and “Thank God, there are no Giant Otway Black Snails around, hehehe.”
So one evening, we’re sitting in a kid’s playground on the beach, watching the sun set, and hey, there’s a BIG HONKING snail. Biggest snail we’ve ever seen. Ew, interesting, OK. We watch sunset some more . . . and suddenly there are a few more of the suckers . . . OK . .. back to sunset . . . and wait, oh, hey, the FRICKIN’ JUNGLE GYM is crawling with the carnivorous Giant Otway Black Snail.
I mean, imagine this scene, except with GIANT SNAILS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydLJtKlVVZw
You’ve been to Australia? I’m jealous, I am.
She’s been everywhere. I got over the jealousy a long time ago.
By the way, why are they referred to as “ponies”?
OMG PONIES??!!?!1
By the way, aren’t all ponies “munching” ponies?
Nothing like a slow day going into the weekend.
“giggle”
Escargettes.
I think snails are very cute, its the goggle wobbly eyes that do it, i had a pet giant African land snail once it used to climb the walls of my bedroom and leave a trail lol x
what is it about fridays around here?
*obligatory dumb answer*
They arrive after Thursdays and before Saturdays???
Maybe we’re all just a little punch-drunk by the time Friday rolls over us?
I keep hearing “We Hear Family” when I look (and squeal) at this pic.