All of us, especially in our childhood, have been fascinated by those inhabitants of the home garden who, unlike the others, wore a shell of snails that protected them from the action of nature, as well as from our own manipulations.
And this time we want to focus on this very characteristic special, since we probably know less about them than we would believe and, more than anything, about how the shell of snails is formed and, why not, what it is made of.
The first thing to say is that snails have little to do with other animals , such as the turtle, which has an extremely hard shell to the touch. In their case, they are really born with this natural protection, and then they must strengthen it as adults.
How is the shell of snails formed?
As you have probably never seen a newborn snail, you will be unaware that the specimens of these mollusks arrive in the world with a shell on their back, one that is extremely thin and vulnerable, which, over time, will harden until it fulfills its original objective. .
In fact, as soon as the snails can carry out their first activity , they ingest the egg from which they hatch, rich in minerals such as calcium, which reinforces the properties of the shell.
As the snail grows in size, the shell expands with it, becoming more resistant, to the point that the shell from birth is covered by a completely new one.
This definitive shell works like an exoskeleton, and is made up of three layers made up of almost 100% calcium carbonate, although with a small percentage of proteins, regenerating every day, from the outside to the inside.
¿Why is it so important?
Basically, a snail could not survive in its ecosystem without the shell protecting it, since it would be vulnerable to the attacks of its numerous predators, from which it sneaks by hiding inside the hermetically sealed shell, preventing it from being opened.
While the snail senses that there is danger, it can remain hidden within the shell for days, even weeks, a phenomenon that repeats when the climate is too hostile , be it due to high or low temperatures, which it can regulate thanks to the shell itself.
And, just as we mentioned before that the development of the shell of snails is different from that of turtles, both are similar in that they help to discover the age of their carriers.
