This afternoon I noticed that Sheldon was floating at the top of the aquarium. I've never had a snail before, but I knew that floating is usually not good. Ben poked him and he fell to the bottom, but just laid there. We decided to wait a while and check him again.
About an hour later there was still no change, so I got on the internet and researched "floating snails." I learned that some snails apparently float for periods of time, even though they are fine. Not knowing what kind of snail we have made the research a little more difficult, but since I thought he was dead, I didn't want to waste the time to see what kind of dead snail we own - dead is dead, no matter what kind he might be. And there are two things we could do to check - pick him up and sniff (I guess decaying snail has quite an odor - much like decaying anything) or push on his foot and if there is resistance that he's alive. Neither of these options sounded like much fun to us.
So we waited a while longer, and Sam and I noticed that Sheldon was climbing on a plant, and was using his foot to slither around on it. And in the last hour he is slithering all over the place again.
Sheldon lives to see another day. And I didn't have to find out what a decaying snail smells like. A good day all around.
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