A grumpy snail

[Ourfish]

I kept hearing this banging noise coming from our saltwater reef tank. When I went to investigate, I found that our turbo snail, Wendel, had climbed onto the back of our strawberry snail, Melody. Well, Melody didn't seem to happy and tried to get him off for a good half hour.

This isn't a photo, it's a video. I hope that's okay. It couldn't really be captured by a still shot.

http://youtu.be/Y4Tr925L-_o

 

[Reef Bass]

Interesting interaction. That must have been a lot of energy expenditure by Melody trying to dislodge Wendel. Her rapid twisting motion has to be the fastest I've seen a snail try to do anything.

I also find it interesting that not only was Melody capable of detecting the hitchhiker, but she formed a plan and took action to rectify the situation. Not too shabby for a snail.

 

[Ourfish]

Well we only buy the smart ones.
We were pretty impressed. I'm just surprised that Wendel held on for so long. I assume he was only trying to clean her shell and if I were him, I'd decide it wasn't worth it pretty quick. My husband wondered if it was some sort of mating, but they're two different species..

 

[Recty]

I've never seen that in saltwater but my brother has tons of freshwater snails and they all do that, the tank is over run with snails so they get on each other a lot and then try to knock the other guy off, pretty amusing to watch.