Food For Thought: Snail IQ

While observing some of the inhabitants in our show tank, I came up with an interesting theory about invertebrates; specifically, turbo snails.

You see, initially I thought snails were on the bottom of the invert intelligence tree. They frequently bump into things, can’t flip themselves over, and are easy targets for predators.  Dumb right? Au contraire!

At night, with flashlight in hand, I like to watch my Mexican turbo snails.  I followed a trio of them to see what they were doing. To my amazement, the same trio of snails converged onto the same big rock with red/green algae.  They did this for three consecutive nights until the algae was gone. Not only that, the same trio found their way back into their nightly sleeping spots. Not only are they efficient at eating algae, but they have a memory of where to sleep and eat. Incredible.

Do the same experiment yourself. Find a snail and track its movement. Note where it sleeps and eats. You will be amazed at how they manage to do a lot of things that ‘more evolved’ animals can.