when snails move, there are ‘ripples’ on the underside of their foot, but the ripples seem to be moving the wrong way. Why is this?

Question

when snails move, there are ‘ripples’ on the underside of their foot, but the ripples seem to be moving the wrong way. Why is this?

In: 3

Answer 1

So basically, the way a snail moves is by slightly pulling its tail forward, then moving every part of its body the same amount forward bit by bit to match. So those waves are small portions of the snail’s body moving forward one at a time. By doing that over and over and over, the whole snail moves forward slowly.

So why does it start in the back? Well, because it’s just compressing its body and then uncompressing it. If it started at the front, the snail would have to stretch out even longer than it already is. That’s hard to do and would be a constant strain on the snail, so instead the first part to move forward is its tail.