I never thought of evolution as action sport until this week. 

Living close to the sea, land and air are moist, the fields are green, most of the time, an oasis, especially for snails. Snails love to eat greens, slowly they make their way around the fields, around the gardens and they don’t stop at the door, leaving slimy trails of  dotted lines wherever they move. Interesting creatures, using their mucus to attach themselves to any surface whatever the direction of gravity it seems, although I have never seen them on the ceiling. 

Like all creatures they have a certain role within their ecosystem, they consume decaying vegetation as well as vegetation in bloom, but are also dinner for animals higher up in the foodweb. They don’t score high on the ‘likability’ index, most people consider them a nuisance to put it mildly and all means are used to eliminate their presence in the precious gardens. Snailbate, also known as molluscicide can be used,  containing something like metaldehyde, not only fatal to the average garden slug, but may also do serious, even fatal damage to your cats and dogs, like a nuclear bomb for the (small world) ecosystem. Snails, maybe not so adorable as a polar bear, but loosing them from our worlds could be disastrous. Like insects and birds, they are disappearing as we speak. 

But who knows, maybe the snails are retaliating, changing their behavior from slow moving mucus trailers to fast spinning slime shooters. This week I was witness to some interesting behavior, snails emulating spiders. Climbing up, they let themselves down via a mucus thread, rappelling freestyle. One I watched coming down from a flower, the other from a window frame, more than a meter high, wondering how they sensed height and especially how they knew their thread would be strong enough to hold until touch down. 

Snails and slugs, known primarily as slow movers, but seem to be fast learners and adapters and can maybe even outsmart the human killing spree. For now I watch in amazement, suspending snails!

I am not the only one who has seen it

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/slug-hanging-slime-spider-australia-b1806341.html

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