Which Is Faster: an Earthworm or a Snail?

It is a question that may have troubled many people for a good part of their lives. They want to know, if there were a race between two ubiquitous garden denizens -- the earthworm and the snail -- which would prevail?

  1. Snails

    • Snails and their cousins, slugs, are not known for speed. But, there are actually organized races between them, and records have been kept. The fastest recorded was a garden snail at a blazing 1.3 cm per second.

    Worms

    • Dr. Kim J. Quillin has studied earthworm locomotion extensively. He studied the most common genus of earthworm, lumbricus, and found that small worms travel less than a centimeter a second; but large worms can traverse as much as 2 cm a second.

    Bias

    • Overland speed comparisons between earthworms and snails are biased. Snails travel above ground naturally, and worms avoid the surface unless it is completely dark. The worms are faster at their top speed, but snails can remain on the surface for much longer. Longer races would go to the snails.