The Anatomy of a Snail

Last week, I found this neat snail outside of Alex's classes. I have never seen a snail like this! The snails we had before only had 2 sets of tentacles - this one has 3! So, I did some research.

I really liked this Snail Investigations site. They have pages for Snail Facts, Snail Anatomy, Snail Life Cycle, Snail Investigations, Snails as Pets, Snail Tales, Snail Crafts, Snail Links, Snail Photos, Snail Games, Teacher's Guide, Snail Home, and Schoolyard Safari. Alex and I enjoyed going through many of these pages. But, it didn't answer my question about the extra pair of tentacles.

The apple snail website talk about the cephalic tentacles, which I believe are the ones without eyespots, and the labial tentacles or labial palps. I believe from this site that both of these sets of tentacles might have olfactory (or smell) organs.

With more research today, I believe our snail might be a Wolfsnail. I found a book with a photo that looked similar: Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator. Our library has the book, so I'll be checking it out. The last thing I learned tonight was that The wolf snail eats slugas and other snails that it catches by following the slime trails that prey snails leave behind. (from this site)