How does a snail give birth? Slowly, say visiting kids

An early morning walk along the beach near St. Gabriel’s Retreat House Wednesday revealed something Bronx visitors Tristan and Naylea Morales thought Island residents might not have witnessed — a snail giving birth.

“We saw it and thought it was special,” Naylea, 10, said about why they wanted to share the experience. They’re spending the week with their aunt, Ada Garcia, a 24-year Shelter Island resident, who admitted that despite her long tenure here, she had never observed the phenomenon.

For Naylea, it wasn’t enough to just observe the snail. She wanted to teach her family about the critters, so she pulled out her computer and visited snailworld.com, and began reading to them about snails, their mating and reproductive habits, the foods they eat and other facts she thought they should know.

While pronouncing the mating process “disgusting,” she explained that shells that protect the tiny snails emerging from the adult are fragile.

Typically, the eggs are deposited into moist soil and take weeks — being snails — to emerge. But at the point where the children recovered the snail, the adult was dropping tiny shell-like offspring into water the children had provided.

The children planned to return the snail and offspring to the beach where it will take them several weeks to develop and hatch.

It became a family affair at the Garcia household where three generations of Garcias and Morales were gathered on the lawn on Emerson Lane  — even including their 7-month old puppy, Mickey — to observe what was happening and join in picture taking and celebrating that new lives were coming into the world in time for the Independence Day celebration.