08/17/2026
Learn, Love, Conserve (see below)**: Fat Dove Snails (*Parvanachis obesa*) are small, rarely reaching 5 mm (0.2 inch). This and other species in the dove-snail family Columbellidae are capable of "crawling upside down" under the air-water interface. They do that by taking advantage of the surface tension on that zone, which makes the liquid behave as if its surface were “covered with a stretched elastic membrane.”
The smaller and lighter the animal, the easier it will be for them to "hang" and crawl under the air-water interface. The same is true for insects, spiders, and other small air-breathing invertebrates capable of walking on water. The snails in the photo were from one of the Gulf beaches on Sanibel.
*“In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” Baba Dioum, 1968. Mr Dioum is a Senegalese environmentalist and founding member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
