19/06/2026
Welcome to this weeks ‘Factfile Friday!’ So on Monday, we introduced our group of 5 Giant African Land Snails- let’s now learn about them!
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Giant African Land Snails can be found from West to East Africa- ranging from Ghana in the West, to Kenya in the East, and everywhere in between!
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Did you know- snails have thousands of teeth! Around 20,000 in fact! Not like our teeth that are fixed into our gums/ jaw, but thousands of microscopic teeth on a special organ called a Radula, which is used to scrape their food- a bit like a cat’s tongue!
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Giant African Land Snails are nocturnal, so they are active at night and sleep in the day. The main reason these guys are nocturnal is due to the intense heat in the daytime, so by sleeping through this and searching for food when the sun has set, is a much better way of living for them.
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In captivity- If the snails living conditions are not the best, or in the wild if there is a drought or a spell of excessive heat, they can cover themselves over in a process called aestivation. This means that they will protect their body by covering the opening of the shell, in a hardened mucus, so forming a barrier to keep the moisture inside. What’s very cool about this process is that the snail can still breathe through tiny spores in the mucus membrane! The snail can be in this state for many months, without food & water!
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Most land snails are hermaphrodites- this means that they posses both the male and female reproductive organs, in one snail, so they don’t need another snail to breed. Once they lay their eggs, they can lay hundreds of eggs at once and near enough all of them, hatching out into tiny baby land snails!
In this zoomed in clip of one of the snails, if you look closely on the skin, you can see a ‘wave like’ motion of slime, where the snail is contracting its muscles to push itself forward. By doing this, these ‘slime waves’ appear, ensuring the body is lubricated enough to slither across the floor without any issues from friction!
