This morning at early light, I inspected my Tower Garden. This is my daily routine and it's both an act that brings pure delight and a maintenance process.
I found eight land snails of varying sizes, crawling up the side of the Tower, resting in the broad lap of a cucumber leaf, busily exploring a tomato leaf. I pulled off each one, waited while it recoiled into its round shell and then gently tossed it into waiting foliage a few feet away. I'm hoping the Dandelions and thick ivy will satisfy their appetites. But just as surely, I know that tomorrow morning, I will find more of the same.
This creature is the Florida garden or land snail, genus Polygyra, subspecies cereolus floridana. It is an air-breathing (as opposed to water snails) terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mullosk. All those terms are somewhat repetitive. Pulmonate means it has air sacs while gastropod is the huge group of 65,000 species of the phylum Mollusca. Terrestrial, of course means land-based.
In researching these archaic looking creatures, I discovered that there are two groups of Mullusks - the snail and the slug, which is a snail without the shell. I also found out that this group is one of the few which has adapted to all major habitats: the ocean, earth and fresh water. That is a feat of evolution in itself. But what makes them more endearing is the fact that they do not carry or transmit disease!
They do enjoy the greens of my Tower Garden, and while I like to follow their meandering trails (see tomato leaf), I do not like the accumulated damage they cause with their nibbling. Thus, the early morning routine.
Next, I'll talk about one of the other creatures to favor my Tower Garden, the chameleon.
I found eight land snails of varying sizes, crawling up the side of the Tower, resting in the broad lap of a cucumber leaf, busily exploring a tomato leaf. I pulled off each one, waited while it recoiled into its round shell and then gently tossed it into waiting foliage a few feet away. I'm hoping the Dandelions and thick ivy will satisfy their appetites. But just as surely, I know that tomorrow morning, I will find more of the same.
This creature is the Florida garden or land snail, genus Polygyra, subspecies cereolus floridana. It is an air-breathing (as opposed to water snails) terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mullosk. All those terms are somewhat repetitive. Pulmonate means it has air sacs while gastropod is the huge group of 65,000 species of the phylum Mollusca. Terrestrial, of course means land-based.
In researching these archaic looking creatures, I discovered that there are two groups of Mullusks - the snail and the slug, which is a snail without the shell. I also found out that this group is one of the few which has adapted to all major habitats: the ocean, earth and fresh water. That is a feat of evolution in itself. But what makes them more endearing is the fact that they do not carry or transmit disease!
They do enjoy the greens of my Tower Garden, and while I like to follow their meandering trails (see tomato leaf), I do not like the accumulated damage they cause with their nibbling. Thus, the early morning routine.
Next, I'll talk about one of the other creatures to favor my Tower Garden, the chameleon.
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