Backyard Snail Relocation Program*

*also known as "Photographing a Better Snail"



Meet Mister Gastropod, our relocation test subject for today. Mister Gastropod tends to hang out on the fence. He'll move by gliding along on his foot, making his path slippery with mucus on the way. With this slippy gunge making movement easier, Mister Gastropod conracts the muscles of his foot in waves in order to reach amazing land speeds of 1mm per second. When he hangs out on the fence, though, he doesn't get into the movement thing very much. He becomes boring. He washes out onto the colourbond background too easily. He is not particularly photogenic. Hence, he becomes an ideal candidate for the Backyard Snail Relocation Program.

Mister Gastropod adapts to a change in location very easily. Unsuspecting, he will be hanging out on the fence and The Hand of Vic will descend, plucking him from his inphotogenic slumber and relocating him to a more appealing location. He will wait a few seconds in order to ensure that the Hand of Vic will not intervene and relocate him again. Then he will extend his stalks and check out his new home.

In this picture he's following his nose. Mister Gastropod has two sets of retractable "stalks" that he uses for his sensory needs. Much like us humans, the eyes are at the top and the sniffers are below. So here he's sniffing out any danger through the hole in his new leaf environment before he pokes his eye stalks through to get a look.

And after the shot was taken, The Hand of Vic rested, and will remain at rest until further relocations are required.