How do snails get their shells?

Question

There are a lot of snails where I live at the moment, some have a shell while others don’t! I don’t know how they acquire their shell, what it is used for, and why some don’t have any.

In: Biology

Answer 1

You’re noticing 2 different creatures: snails, who are born with shells and always have them throughout their lives, and slugs, which resemble shell-less snails but actually have an internal shell that we can’t see.