Snail Trails

Abstract

Hawai‘i’s terrestrial snails are disappearing and with them the complex lifeworlds of their kind. While the perceptual, social, and behavioural lives of most invertebrates are rarely given much attention by many of us, the slime trails that snails leave behind provide a particularly rich pathway into these places. This chapter is an effort to take these silvery remainders seriously. Structured around a narrative account of a visit to a snail exclosure—a fenced conservation area in the Wai‘anae Mountains on the island of O‘ahu—the chapter is a foray into the lives of snails, paying particular attention to the way in which key elements of their social and spatial worlds—their umwelten (after Uexküll)—are quite literally slimed into being. As Hawai‘i’s snails face growing challenges to their continued survival, attending to slime may provide some fragile possibilities for ongoing life, opening up new avenues for both conservation and appreciation.

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