Snail ate your mail? Why gastropods munch paper – and how to stop them
The Guardian ·
In wet weather, garden snails can seek shelter in letterboxes – and find a feast there waiting for them We’ve all heard of snail mail – a term popularised since the advent of electronic mail – but who knew that snails eat mail? It might sound far-fetched but it’s true. We have it on good authority from the ecologist Simon Mustoe, who said snails ate his letter from Sir David Attenborough , a BBC report announcing the closure of a Northumberland Royal Mail postbox because of snails “munching the mail”, and desperate people on the forums of the Australian hardware chain Bunnings claiming snails have “a real appetite for postal letters” and can “eat a whole letter in two days”. Continue reading...