A Lesson in Sex

I bet THAT got your attention!  No, I am not doing a racy post.  Sorry to disappoint you.  But I do have a kid and have to keep this clean.

We have a fish tank where almost all our fish die but the snails are loving it.  We bought one snail then Son found another one in the river and added that to the tank.  Somewhere another one materialized which Son took to school for their tank.  So we were back to 2.  Until this week.  All of a sudden we found this:

Now WHERE did that come from? 

(I suck at taking pictures into the tank.)

We haven't bought any new fish and Son hasn't been playing in the river. So I checked the internet to see if we have baby producing snails.  Here is what I found out:

The Snail is a hermaphrodite. This means that the snail is both male and female. All hermaphroditic snails can lay eggs. The Snail can "mate" with himself and thus only one can reproduce in an aquarium or pond. he also breeds sexually as often as possible. Most snails lay eggs but some, like the trapdoor snail, give live birth. Trapdoor snails and a few other species of snails (apple, golden inca, four horned, etc.) are not hermaphrodites. They can only reproduce sexually.

Ok.  So it seems that my 2 snails are reproducing or it could be just one of them.  What fun!  Escargo anyone?