Smart Mouth

In case you missed it, that was some white snail on black snail lovin’ going on in the pond a few weeks ago.

TODAY?!? We were cleaning out the filter, trying to save the tadpoles with the tiniest brains that had gotten themselves lodged in there and we found this!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT?!? THE?!?! EFF?!?! IS?!?! THAT!?!?!?! (I can hear you asking! heehee)

Those are Aquatic Apple Snail EGGS!!!!!!!!! Here they are next to my finger, so you can see how big they are.

I ran inside and googled snail eggs, and found out that the snails lay them above the water line… I even found a site with a picture of a snail laying eggs…

COOL, HUH?!?!

I had noticed the snails hanging out over by the filter more often lately, but WOW! I gotta give the snails some props! The snail page I was reading said that they lay their eggs above the waterline, usually on plant vegetation or the safest place they can find, so their babies are not eaten by fish or other predators. So, my snails had to squeeze behind the grate on the filter (held in place with two big rocks) to get inside the filter to lay the eggs, and then squeeze back out! It is a perfect spot! The fish cannot get in there! YAY Mrs. SNAIL!!! TWO WOOTS FOR YOUR INGENIOUS EGG LAYING LOCATION!

So, then?!? I did more investigating and found this:

An EMPTY egg sac!!! SO, if it is empty, there MUST be baby snails somewhere, RIGHT?!?!

Well, it took a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time, but I finally found some waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay on the other side of the pond, in that little netting bag that the tadpoles hid in when THEY were wee tiny. My picture didn’t focus well, but you can get the idea of HOW WEE TINY SMALL they are!

HOLY BABY SNAILS, PEOPLE! WOOT!

So, the moral of the story is this: IF you build it? THEY WILL COME! AND THEY WILL HAVE BABIES! HA!