Snails are soft bodied animals who are usually covered by a coiled shell. The little critters move along on a strong muscular structure called a foot. The head of a snail has tentacles (feelers), eyes, and even tiny teeth its tiny mouth. Snails can come in over 80,000 different types and range in size from as small as a pinhead up to 60 centimetres long.

Snails can be of 3 main varieties: land, freshwater or saltwater based on where they live.

The ones on this and the following pages are all land snails which live on the ground, found in damp places in fields or in the woods. Sometimes you can find snail tracks on hard surfaces which are left from the sticky slime the snail uses to help itself move. The land snail uses its muscular foot to create a backwards wave type motion that propels it forward. The snail can also slime itself into its own shell for protectection from dry weather periods, just resting until the dry spell ends.

The Helix garden snail is also known as Escargot and is supposedly a great edible delight.

Scientifically speaking the snail belongs to the phylum Mollusca in the class Gastropda. The land snail is in the subclass Pulmonata.