This year the rainy season gave my city a miss. The rainfall deficit is 72%. Clouds that float in the sky look tired and morose for missing their yearly rainfall target.
I have no issues either with the little rain or the innumerable small insects, moss and plants that have come to life on my little patch of green.
The snails that have started showing up did not even deserve a glance earlier but now they do. There are quite a few in my patch of green. But their penchant for appearing and disappearing makes it hard for me to discover when I want to photograph them.
National Geographic has taught me that they have reproductive organs of both sexes on them or they are hermaphrodites. They are able to produce both sperm and eggs, after mating they will both conceive and lay eggs. This makes me curious and I am happy to share what I know.
I guess that the ancient myth of Cupid’s arrow was based on the observations of the love dart behaviour of the land snail or ‘helix apersa’. A love dart or ‘gypsobelum’ is a sharp dart, made in sexually mature hermaphrodite land snails and are used as a part of the sequence of events during courtship. But it is not a ‘penial stylet’ or an accessory organ for sperm transfer.
There is no organ to receive the dart. The action is similar to stabbing and is fired as a contact shot. Dart shapes may vary, are sharp, and large compared to the size of the animal but they do not fly through the air to reach their target. Their harpoon or needle-like ability to pierce is common. Prior to copulation both the snail would attempt to shoot one or more darts into the other.
Snails cannot see well enough to help aim the darts accurately and miss their target often. It can also be so forceful that the dart gets lodged or pierce the body. The use of the dart can strongly tilt the reproductive results for the snail that is successful in lodging a dart in its partner. The mucus on the dart introduces a hormone like substance that allows more of its sperm to survive.
Love darting is a process, a form of sexual selection by the snails. It begins with a courting ritual, an elaborate tactile affair. Two snails begin circling each other, touching tentacles, biting lips and the area of the genital pore.
As they approach mating, pressure builds up in the blood sinus around the organ housing the dart. Each manoeuvres for the best position to get their genital pore, close to other snail’s body.
Finally, as the body of one snail touches the other snail’s genital pore, it triggers the firing of the dart. After both have fired their darts, they copulate and exchange sperms.
It takes time to create a new replacement dart. In subsequent mating, a snail may have to do without a dart. The snail is a creature of anti-sensibility, but in the most romanticized sense. It is indeed a prince of sorts, lonely but in good company.
Did I see the actual love darting? My answer is – no ! but you can watch this video in YouTube.
Snails love their privacy very much. Let my little patch of green be their play field. Love making is very private for human and for snails too !