Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Snail Sex | Deep Look

no surprise that in love garden snails like to take it slow but this isn't some basic boy-meets-girl story snails are hermaphrodites they have both boy and girl parts you might think that makes life simpler but

Not so fast snails are deaf and basically blind their eyes can really only see shadows so snails rely on taste and smell to find a partner they just follow the

Slime gliding along until bada-boom they get pretty cozy touching tasting smelling for hours

But these snails are about to have a battle of the sexes even though they're both both sexes the first shot is a secret love dart before the real action starts they stab each other with these tiny Spears that are normally hidden

Inside their bodies different species have different shaped darts there it is the dart delivers hormones that will stimulate it to accept sperm it's made of calcium carbonate the same as the snail shell hard and sharp like a needle

Things really heat up from there that thing is called the inverted atrium it's like a rubber glove slowly turning inside out until yep that's exactly what you think it is once they get lined up the snails swapped sperm you take some

Of mine I'll take some of yours but this battle isn't over the snails bodies go on the attack killing most of the other snail sperm before they get to the eggs see whether your one sex or both fatherhood is easy it's the cheapest way

To produce offspring motherhood that's hard work so both snails want to be more father than they are mother that's where the loved art comes in it's hormones help protect the sperm so more of them

Survive in the other snails body the snail that fires the best shot has the edge in passing on his per their genes in about two weeks the snails lay eggs underground those are the baby snails moving around inside they hatch and eat

What's left of their egg before heading out into the world very slowly of course hey guys it's Lauren thanks for watching this deep look now our partner PBS Digital Studios wants to hear from you it's a survey so we can

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