Do snails have genders?

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asked Jun 14, 2022 in Science by JWalkz899 (900 points)
Do snails have genders?

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answered Jun 14, 2022 by Yracoony (2,480 points)
Snails do have genders.

Although snails have both female and male reproductive cells.

To find out if a snail is a female or male snail look through the magnifying glass as the foot extends, training your vision on the right mantle cavity, attached to the inside of the shell over the head and neck.

Keep your eyes peeled for the snail's relatively large penis sheath.

It will resemble the front of a pouch.

If you don't see one, the snail is female.

Snails have both female and male reproductive cells (they are hermaphrodite).

The snails don't actually need to mate with another snail in order to reproduce, self fertilization is possible.

In fact, many species undergo sex change at some point in their lives, particularly after reaching a certain degree of maturity or size.

Snails called slipper limpets are born male, but they turn into females later in life.

Sex change is believed to be triggered by visual, behavioral, and chemical factors.

After mating, each snail will lay eggs either in the dirt (land snails) or behind a rock (marine snails).

The eggs will hatch and a baby snail will be born after 2-4 weeks.

While the baby grows and develops it stays in a nest near its parents for about 3 months before it is ready to go off into the world on its own.

Snails are hermaphrodites, having both male and female sexual organs with the ability to both fertilize and lay eggs.

When two snails meet, they will vie for position on who is going to be the male or female.

A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod.

The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs.

Snails carry diseases and parasitic worms (including Schistosomiasis that can be dangerous for domestic pets and people.

Having them on your property may be putting your health at risk.

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