If you’ve ever come across a snail in your garden, you may have wondered – do snails make any noise at all? At first glance, these small creatures seem totally silent as they slowly creep along on their slimy bellies. But contrary to popular belief, snails are not completely mute!
If you’re short on time, here’s a quick answer to your question: Snails do make faint noises that most humans can’t hear. They produce sounds by rubbing body parts together or vibrating.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the different noises that various snail species can create, explain how and why they make these sounds, look at the exceptions to snail noises, and discuss whether snails can hear sounds themselves.
The Faint Noises Snails Produce
Rasping Their Shells Against Surfaces
One of the most common sounds produced by snails is the rasping or grinding noise made when they drag their shells against surfaces. This abrasive sound is caused by the friction of the snail’s hard shell scraping against rocks, walls, leaves, or other objects as it moves along.
The raspy vibration can usually be heard if you listen closely to a snail slowly inching across a window pane or rough wall.
A snail generates this rasping sound whenever it needs to detach its body from a surface. The snail’s muscular foot sticks tightly to surfaces using mucus. To release its foot, the snail rocks back and forth, grinding its shell against the surface to break the mucus seal.
This rubbing action produces the scratchy rasping noise.
Scraping Radula Teeth Together
Another common sound made by snails is the scraping of their radula, which is the ribbon-like tongue containing thousands of tiny teeth. Snails scrape these teeth together to grind up food and vegetation into smaller pieces before swallowing.
Listen closely to a snail slowly chewing a leaf or other plant matter and you may hear a faint scraping or gnawing sound. This is the minuscule noise generated by the radula teeth scraping and grinding plant material into tiny bits. The sound is very subtle and quiet.
Some sources compare the sound to a cat’s lapping of milk or the gnawing sound a mouse makes. The scrapings of the radula teeth are one of the few chewing sounds snails produce since they do not have jaws or vocal chords.
Vibrating Their Bodies
Snails also make noise by vibrating their bodies rapidly. Certain snail species can vibrate their shells and bodies at high speeds to produce a humming, buzzing, or clicking sound.
For example, the Rayed tigersnail native to South America vibrates its shell against its body to create a buzzing warning sound when it feels threatened. Some snails in the Marisa genus make an audible clicking noise by striking their shells against hard substrates.
These vibrations are generated by specific muscles and likely help communicate with other snails. The sounds can vary from a soft hum to a loud buzz depending on the species and situation. Next time you see a snail, observe it closely to detect any faint vibrating noises.
Purpose of Snail Noises
Attracting Mates
One of the main reasons snails make noise is to attract potential mates. The rasping, scraping sounds male snails produce by moving over rough surfaces serve as “mating songs” to get the attention of females. The quality and loudness of the snail’s song indicates its fitness as a mate.
In several land snail species, the chorus of snail scraping can be quite loud, especially on humid nights when snails are most active. This snail serenade is vital for bringing male and female snails together to breed.
Defending Territory
Snails also make noise to warn other snails away from their territory and food sources. As solitary animals, snails aren’t very sociable with members of their own species and prefer to have their own space.
The scraping sounds of one snail moving around serves as a signal to other snails to keep their distance. Some species even produce warning hisses by forcing air through their breathing pores when bothered by another snail.
Vibrating noises can also be made as a warning by pounding their fleshy foot against the ground. These territorial signals help reduce conflict over resources.
Avoiding Predators
Snail noises can also act as a defense mechanism against predators. When snails sense danger, some are able to produce squeaking or whistling sounds by contracting muscles to expel air. These alarm noises warn other snails in the area that a predator is near.
The sudden noise startles predators and may cause them to retreat. Making noise can also alert other snails to play dead, retreat into their shells or produce distasteful mucus. Being able to loudly vocalize in response to predators gives snails a better chance of surviving attacks from birds, rodents, insects and other predators.
Exceptions: Snail Species That Are Truly Silent
While most snails and slugs make some type of sound, there are a few notable exceptions of snail species that are truly silent. These mute mollusks get by without producing any audible noises.
The Quiet Banana Slug
The banana slug is a famous snail native to the Pacific Coast of North America. These bright yellow gastropods can grow up to 10 inches long, making them the second-largest slug species worldwide. True to their name, they are the same color and shape as a ripe banana.
Banana slugs are completely mute – they do not make any vocal noises at all. Without the ability to produce sound, banana slugs instead rely heavily on touch and smell senses to interact with their environment and each other.
They use a keener eyesight compared to other slugs to visually locate food sources like mushrooms and decaying plant material.
Silent Sea Slugs
Several species of sea slugs are also incapable of producing sound. Sea slugs are marine gastropod mollusks that inhabit tropical and temperate oceans worldwide. Some well-known examples include blue sea slugs, sap-sucking slugs, and sea hares.
These slugs navigate the ocean floors and coral reefs without making any audible vocalizations. They do not have the physical structures needed to generate noises. Like the banana slug, sea slugs instead use chemical and touch cues to communicate and sense predators or food in their aquatic environment.
Other Noiseless Land Snails
In addition to the mute banana slug, there are a few other terrestrial slug and snail species that are similarly silent. Garden snails, decollate snails, and some species of cellar slugs are also incapable of creating sounds.
These land gastropods lack the rasping radula and vocal cords that most snails employ to generate audible noises. They get by just fine relying on their other senses and are able to effectively communicate danger, mate, and go about their lives without producing any sounds.
So while the majority of snails and slugs can vocalize in some manner, there are a few notable quiet exceptions. For certain slugs and snails, living life in total silence is not a hindrance thanks to their keen senses of smell, touch, and sight.
Can Snails Hear Sounds?
When it comes to hearing, snails have limited auditory senses compared to humans. However, they can detect vibrations and some low-frequency noises using sensory organs located on their heads and tentacles called ommatophores.
Sensing Vibrations
Snails sense vibrations transmitted through the surface they are on using sensory receptors in the muscular part of their foot called the anterior pedal gland. They can detect the vibrations of potential predators moving which helps them retreat into their shell for protection.
These vibration sensors allow snails to be alerted of danger from over 3 feet away based on studies.
In addition, potential mates also create vibrations that snails can detect for reproductive purposes. When a snail crawls over a surface, it leaves behind a mucus trail embedded with pheromones to signal its presence to potential mates.
Other snails can pick up these pheromones through chemoreceptors on their tentacles and follow the mucus trail to find the signaling snail.
Hearing Low-Frequency Noises
Though they lack ears and eardrums, snails can detect some low-pitched noises below 1000 Hz using their ommatophores which contain sensory cells called auditory cilia. For example, they can hear noises caused by digging, chewing or movement which may indicate predators nearby that they need to hide from.
Additionally, some predatory snails may use auditory cues from prey snails to hunt more effectively. According to a 2021 study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, rosy wolf snails (Euglandina rosea) responded to low-frequency rasping sounds made by other snail species, enabling them to more easily locate the prey snails.
| Snail Ability to Detect | Method |
| Vibrations from movement on shared surface | Sensory receptors in foot |
| Potential mates | Pheromone receptors on tentacles |
| Low frequency noises under 1000 Hz | Auditory cilia on ommatophores |
While snails can pick up on some noises and vibrations, their auditory perception is still limited compared to many other animals. Their key sensory organs remain their tentacles for sensing smells, tastes and physical touch rather than specialized organs for detecting sound waves.
Conclusion
While most of us don’t notice the subtle sounds snails produce, these creatures do make noises by rasping their shells against surfaces, scraping their radula teeth, and vibrating. The faint snail noises serve purposes like attracting mates, defending territory, and avoiding predators.
Though some snail species are mute, many can sense vibrations and low-frequency noises around them. The next time you spot a snail, listen closely to discover the hidden world of snail sounds!
