Meeting Abstract
Mucous trail following is a strategy used by a variety of snails and may be utilized for mating, foraging, and ease of locomotion. Nerita scabricosta, an abundant intertidal snail in the Bay of Panama has been occasionally observed to trail follow in the field. We tested the hypotheses that (1) snails do follow the trails of other snails and (2) that following behavior is sex specific, with male snails tracking females more often than other males. For trail following assays, snails were placed in the middle of a circle on an acetate sheet, which was covered in a fine mist of water. We recorded the time it took the snail to leave the circle, the 30 degree interval in which it left, and the total distance the snail traveled. After the first, or marker snail, made its trail, the acetate sheet was rotated, and a second, or tracker snail, was introduced in the center of the circle and its route was documented in the same way. For the tracker snail we recorded the amount its trail overlapped the marker’s trail. Snails followed each other more often than would be expected by chance, but sex was not a significant factor. Snails of one sex were no more likely to follow snails of the other and neither sex showed a greater propensity to follow than the other. We conclude that the Nerita scabricosta does not use snail tracking as a means of finding a mate, as do Littorinid snails, and that trail tracking may be more important in searching for food, saving energy and mucous during travel, or in homing behaviors.
