Beautiful Bubbles

(Image credit: Denis Riek)Two female bubble-rafting violet snails, Janthina exigua. This is the most common species of bubble-rafting snail.

Violet Rafting Snail

(Image credit: Denis Riek)Janthina janthina, a bubble-rafting violet snail. The snail excretes mucus from its foot and uses the raft of bubbles to float from place to place.

Bubble-Rafting Snail On Shore

(Image credit: Public domain)This violet bubble-rafting snail washed up on Maui, Hawaii.

Brown Bubble-Rafting Snail

(Image credit: Denis Riek)A rare bubble-rafting brown janthina snail, Recluzia cf. jehennei. These snails live their lives upside-down, floating on a raft of mucus bubbles. Researchers believe the bubble rafts evolved from floating egg masses.

Ram's Horn Snails

(Image credit: Scott Bauer, USDA Agricultural Research Service)Two ram's horn snails, Planorbella trivolvis, hang out on underwater vegetation. The snails carry parasitic nematodes that infect catfish.

Pearly Shell

(Image credit: Bureau of Land Management, Oregon)The Oregon megomphix has a translucent shell and equally pearly body. This snail lives in the mixed forests of Washington and Oregon.

Monster Snails

(Image credit: pdtnc,)The east African land snail is one of the largest snail species on Earth. These African snails are a threat to agriculture and a potential invasive species in the United States. They're sometimes illegally kept as pets.

Snail Eggs

(Image credit: Gary Stolz, US Fish and Wildlife Service)It's a girl! (And a boy, actually, since snails are hermaphrodites with both male and female reproductive systems.) These pink pearls are apple snail eggs found in Florida's Everglades National Park.

Sea Snails

(Image credit: Nick Hobgood)Wentletrap snails feed on coral and anemones at the bottom of the sea. These mollusks carry their eggs with them, seen here as yellow masses.

Janthina Snail

(Image credit: Scott T Slattery | Shutterstock)A janthina snail with its mucus-bubble raft washed up onshore in Barbados.