Edible terrestrial snail usually served in the shell with a sauce of melted butter and garlic; SYN. snail.
Air-breathing gastropod related to the snails, but with absent or much reduced shell.
Any of various terrestrial gastropods having an elongated slimy body and no external shell.
ETYM Old Eng. snaile, as. snaegel, snegel, snaegl; akin to German schnecke, Old High Germ. snecko, Dan. snegl, Icel. snigill.
Freshwater or marine or terrestrial gastropod mollusk usually having an external enclosing spiral shell.
Air-breathing gastropod mollusk with a spiral shell. There are thousands of species, on land and in water. The typical snails of the genus Helix have two species in Europe. The common garden snail h. aspersa is very destructive to plants.
The Roman snail Helix pomatia is “corralled” for the gourmet food market. Overcollection has depleted the population. The French eat as much as 5 kg/11 lb of snails per capita each year.
ETYM Latin, a snail, or snail shell, Greek kochlias a snail, from kochlos a shellfish with a spiral shell.
The snail-shaped tube in the inner ear where sound vibrations are converted into nerve impulses by the Organ of Corti.
Spirally coiled part of ear.
Part of the inner ear. It is equipped with approximately 10,000 hair cells, which move in response to sound waves and thus stimulate nerve cells to send messages to the brain. In this way they turn vibrations of the air into electrical signals.