Originally published on Photoblog by Gethin Thomas October. 09, 2020
[65-365] 9th. October 2020- I was just walking along this morning and spotted this little arrangement of snails lying in wait for my camera.
They were sitting on top of an "A" board for a café all huddled together, and there are even more under the gap. I would love to know why they all chose this spot to congregate. Nature is so full of beauty and mystery.
Word for the day today- Chirality
The spiral shells of snails are often used as a textbook example of biological structures that possess chirality. Chirality is a property of asymmetry important in several branches of science. The word chirality is derived from the Greek χειρ (kheir), "hand," a familiar chiral object. Chirality is also described as handedness.
An object or a system is chiral if it is distinguishable from its mirror image; that is, it cannot be superimposed onto it. Conversely, a mirror image of an achiral object, such as a sphere, cannot be distinguished from the object. A chiral object and its mirror image are called enantiomorphs (Greek, "opposite forms")
So in practical terms shell-coiling is important because a snail’s sexual organs are usually twisted and it is difficult for snails of opposite handedness to reproduce.