They might be giants—they are giants
Thanks to a Nigerian friend of the family, who visits her home country every December, I have received another batch of giant African snail shells. This lot of 6 shells are even huger than the ones she had brought back last year. Last year I had identified them as Achatina achatina, but a reader subsequently indicated that they were actually Archachatina marginata. I'll stick with that name until further notice.
For weight measurements that do not require great accuracy, I use an old, battered Ohaus Cent-O-Gram triple-beam balance that I rescued from a certain one-way trip to a garbage dump several years ago during a laboratory clean-up. Most of these guys are only a few tenths of a gram below the balance's maximum capacity of 111 g.
This one was 109.65 g. In fact, one of them exceeds 111 g.
They are also longer than the standard 15-cm span of calipers. So, how do I measure them?
I'm telling you, they are giants.
6 comments:
Have lots of them running around my garden.....
Jean (Durban, South Africa)
Hey when I opened todays post the music I was listening to was the "They Might Be GIants" and the song was "Snail Shell"...
I guess St. Che is watching over me,Too!
I can't for the life of me think what they're called, but biological anthropologists use a kind of box with a sliding scale for measuring the longer bones like femurs. Might be worth asking the bone guys what they have lying around...
Bigger than any snail I've ever seen.
Now that's a snail!
You might want to get a fish measuring board. It's a board with a ruler and a stop at one end.
A fish measuring board is a good idea. But for the time being, I'll probably photograph them alongside a ruler & estimate their lengths from photos.
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