Many times I’ve seen snails appear in the garden, seemingly out of nowhere, during rain. What I don’t understand is where they come from – snails don’t move very fast, so the fact that they’re suddenly there – are they there the whole time, but only come out when it rains? If not, why are they drawn to this garden – surely it’s raining everywhere else as well. What about the rain causes them to appear? And how do they disappear again afterwards? You never see them moving in or out, like you can’t see them turned away and leaving at the end, or disappearing into whatever hole they came from. How do they appear so suddenly when they move so slowly? I just want someone to give me a simple explanation pls
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Your question has already been answered, so let me add a historical titbit:
Already in ancient times, many philosophers such as Aristotle were baffled by occurrences such as snails, worms and maggots seemingly appearing from nowhere under the right conditions. This led to the common theory that dead matter sometimes spontaneously turns into critters. A very off yet first version of what we now call abiogenesis: life from non-life.
This held on well into the 19th century, even including larger animals such as birds. Anyone interested can read more on the [Wikipedia article on Spontaneous Generation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation).
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