White Snail Shells!

[Michael Alexander]

I remember that whenever we went Chameleon hunting in the desert, I always noticed those white snail shells, lots of them, everywhere, kinda like a group of french chefs had moved through the Namib culling snails, the question is, where did all those snails come from and even more puzzling, where did they all go to?

;D

[Clive Symes]

Mike, try going out into the desert just after it has rained or when the ground is still wet in the early mornings, you will find that the snails are not white but a nutty brown with very pink flesh on the inside. There werepeople that used to collect them for eating. Justlike the free mushrooms onthe golf course.

[Andrew Darné]

If I remember correctly there was in an enviro alert type article in the Gazette (Newsletter) a good few years back telling the tale of the snails found in the desert. They are a species found only in the Namib...

Anyone else... slak fundi's?

[Alfred Boehme]

This is going at a snails pace we will find out 2 months from now

[SandyB]

The  snails   yes I suppose to those that liked them would have  been a bounty ... I recall  one  of the  french families .. think it the Bertaux  ( helicopter pilot ) had an enclosed patch in their garden in 13th ave .... with  tall growing plants  that were obviously beneficial to optimum  snail  production vis  flavour and cleanliness ..  ..  this patch  was  alive  with snails  chomping away ...
My personal opinion on  escargot  as served in restaurants ..  drenched in garlic  butter  .. might as well have had  bread  in  shells  laced with  garlic butter .. just my take ...

[Alfred Boehme]

And along came I with my law mower "aratatattat"

[Michael Alexander]

I don;t see as many of those sun bleached shells in the desert, as I did when I was a kid back in the 70's...... I know at the sand quarry, there use to be a lot....

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

The gravel they putting into the plants these days has millions of snail shells in it, might be thousands of years old.

[Bertie Horak]

I used to keep a few of the white ones as pets around 1976.  Mom wasn't happy, I fed her violets to them!  Caught them to the north of town in the desert.  Quite easy to catch early morning - just follow the trail to the small mounds, they dig into the ground to get away from the warm sun.
Mine had complete white shells, and the snail body was a very dark purple, almost black.

The same snails can be found between Kleinzee and Koingnaas, especially in the Somnaas area close to the shipwreck (I think the "Aristea" wreck).

What tickled me, was that in the desert in Oranjemund, as well as the Kleinzee veld, there were areas where you would find hundreds of dry shells gathered in one spot as if somebody put them there.  Never could find out how that happened.  My best theory - there must have been a poisonous plant in the past, and all the snails that ate from it died on the spot, or some animal that ate them had a "nest" there long ago and now that the nest is long gone, all that remains are the shells...

[Alfred Boehme]

Or maybe they had a piss up and couldn't get home

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

These snail lived in the sea, think the whole mine area was under the sea thousands/ millions of years ago...

[henniek]

looks like the shells have been brought there by water

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

The onces in MA1 look different... slimmer and pointed on the one side...

[Dalene Steenkamp (Coetzee)]

My mom had quite a beautifull garden and her biggest fight was to keep the snails away.  We used to have a bunch of banana trees growing in the garden behind the braai pondok and my mom planted her herbs there  -  now here those snails with no shells florished in their hundreds.  We used to pour salt over them and they would shrivel up and die.  Can't remember that well, but did we not learn about the snail in science in the Std 4 year?

My dad used to have these big fish tanks and he also had some snails in them  -  at one stage we thought it would be good to put a few of the ordinary garden snails in the tank  -  needless to say  -  they died and my dad was not very happy with us for disturbing the expensive fishies nice environment !