Are baby snails born with shells?
The snail’s shell develops while it is still an embryo; it is, however, very weak, and needs an immediate supply of calcium. Newly hatched snails obtain this by eating the egg from which they hatched. Baby snails cannibalizing other eggs, even unhatched ones, has been recorded. Promptly after they are finished ingesting their egg casings, they crawl upwards through the small tunnel remaining from when their parent dug their nest. At this stage, the young are almost completely transparent and colorless. Their shell is usually slightly smaller than the egg they hatched from, but their body length when out of their shell is slightly greater than the egg diameter. After a few weeks, the snails will begin to show their first tinge of color, usually slightly blue, before they turn their adult color. Roughly three months after they have hatched, they will look like miniature versions of their mature kin. They will continue to grow, usually for two to three years, until they reach adult size,
