Photos

The word snail is a common name for almost all members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word snail is used in a general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. Snails lacking a shell or having only a very small one are usually called slugs. Snails that have a broadly conical shell that is not coiled or appears not to be coiled are often known as limpets.

The class of Gastropoda (the snails and slugs) is second only to insects in terms of total number of species. Snails are extraordinarily diverse in habitat, form, behavior, and anatomy. Therefore, what is true of one snail species may not be true of another.