Snails. Some love to eat them. Some, especially gardeners, consider them a pest.
Snails are mollusks that belong to the gastropod class. There are tens of thousands of snail species. The easiest way to group them is by categorizing them into land snails, sea snails, and fresh-water snails. While most land snails are herbivores, I caught several Alfreds, yes I call any garden uninvited "guests" Alfred 🤪, munching on my cat's dry food. And those kibbles include chicken and salmon! This is to show that snails might enjoy living on trees, or in a desert, and they don't all follow the same diet. Some are edible to humans and many more contain parasites that might kill us. Or at least the adventurous people who revel in that delicatessen. To tell you the story briefly, snails are differentiated by the texture of their shells, and also their color, as well as their slimy skin. For some more info about types of snails and what they eat, read this article.
On another hand, snails provide substances used in anti-inflammatory and wound-healing ointments. Maybe snail products and creams are becoming more and more fashionable in spas and salons, they have been used to cure an array of ailments since ancient times. Aside from containing proteins, vitamins, and minerals, for those who ingest them, snail meat and slime are both used in cosmetology and medicine. Greeks and Romans used snail meat and slime to treat seizures, and insomnia, reduce external inflammation of the skin, cure asthma and difficulties in breathing, medicate liver and hepatitis, and so much more. If you like to read more about this, check Snail slime: the science behind molluscs as medicine and Is snail medicinal? and be awed with all these little guys procure. I still don't enjoy them munching on my grass or newly planted shrubs, or leaving their trails of slime on my windows and walls, but I do acknowledge their worth more after educating myself on them.
Happy gardening🌱🐌🌱
