Bold snails are built to be tough.
A close look at bold snails’ shells reveals that they are rounder, thicker and more bite-resistant than shy snails’ shells. This finding, published online April 22 in Biology Letters, shows that within a species, bolder individuals can build bodies with better-developed predator defenses. These individual differences may have a genetic foundation, the scientists suggest.
“The idea that individuals can have body structures that match their behavior type is really interesting,” says Simon Lailvaux, a biologist at the University of New Orleans. “Findings like these expose how little we know about variations among individuals within a species.”