Do snails sleep?

[Whysosalty]

Alright so I have a couple gigantic snails and they haven’t moved since last night. I guess my question is do they sleep? One is in the corner of the tank half way in the sand bed and the other is laying in the sand in the rock work. Any suggestions on why??

 

[Whysosalty]

Alright so I have a couple gigantic snails and they haven’t moved since last night. I guess my question is do they sleep? One is in the corner of the tank half way in the sand bed and the other is laying in the sand in the rock work. Any suggestions on why??

 

[Whysosalty]

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

I believe they do. That or mine like to stare at the inside of their shell for hours at a time. Some times days... some are lazier than others...

 

[Greckel]

Sometimes I have snails that stay in the same place for days. I get worried and end up moving them to check if they are alive. Sure enough, they crawl right back to where they were. In sum, I wouldn't worry about the snails for a while. So long as your parameters are good, I would assume they are alive.

 

[cracker]

I "think " that all animals have to sleep. Interesting question. Surely someone has studied this .Where is the write up on this ?

 

[ThunderGoose]

All animals THAT HAVE BEEN STUDIED have been shown to sleep. I don't have a review article that discusses this but I do have a link to the latest study I read shows that jellyfish appear to sleep. We can't look at their brain waves but they have periods where they are slow to rouse, like you are at 3 am. The jellyfish study is here: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)31023-0?wpisrc=nl_science&wpmm=1

We don't know WHY animals sleep but it's clearly important since hibernating animals wake up during the winter in order to sleep. It's a very interesting field of topic.

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

I think we are getting off topic fast but it's interesting still. I heard on NPR that toxins buildup in our brains and can't make it past the blood brain barrier in order to be removed via our cardiovascular system without REM sleep. The toxins are what makes our heads hurt when we get tired if I remember correctly.