The characteristic slime trail left by slugs and snails has some of the qualities of both a glue and a lubricant. It helps the creature glide forwards when pressure is lifted, or stick to surfaces when …

2015年10月12日 · Snails constantly produce slime, even when they're not moving. When they do move, they leave a trail of slime that can appear as a silvery track on various surfaces. When they're not moving, the slime serves another important purpose .

Narrow, silvery trails give them away: snails stalking the garden, using their single foot to glide along on the mucus they secrete. Like footprints, slime trails provide clues to the behavior of these mollusks: where they're migrating from, where they're …

Snail slime is secreted by glands located all over the body, though the largest, and that responsible for the silvery trails, is at the front of the foot. When resting, snails produce enough mucus to glue themselves to a substrate and create a membranous seal called an epiphragm covering the opening of the shell.

Snails are highly unusual among multicellular animals in that they move on a layer of costly mucus, leaving behind a trail that can be followed and utilized for various purposes by themselves or by other animals. Here we review more than 40 years of …

Snails are highly unusual among multicellular animals in that they move on a layer of costly mucus, leaving behind a trail that can be followed and utilized for various purposes by themselves or by other animals.

2007年9月1日 · By estimating the area under curves that describe mucus thickness as a function of trail width, the investigators showed that double trails possess only 27% more mucus than single trails, suggesting that tracker snails secrete much less energetically costly material when they follow a previously laid trail.

2013年2月4日 · Snails are highly unusual among multicellular animals in that they move on a layer of costly mucus, leaving behind a trail that can be followed and utilized for various purposes by themselves...

2013年2月4日 · Some snails, for example, increase energy intake by eating particles attached to the mucus of trails that they follow, whereas others save energy through reducing the production of their own mucus by moving over previously laid mucus trails. Trail-following to locate a prey item or a mate is also a way to save energy.

1972年5月1日 · In the meantime it has been possible to show: (a) that the snails lay trails that they themselves follow; (b) that snails will follow trails laid by other individuals of the same species; (c) that the animals can distinguish the direction of trails laid by others; and (d) that the trails remain capable of in- fluencing future behaviour for ...