From Adrian Horridge, Australian National University
Canberra
Will you please explain why the common garden snail, Helix aspersa
(now an introduced garden pest in Australia) makes broad intermittent scrape
marks with its radula when browsing on the outside cover of New
Scientist?
The surface pigment is scraped away in patches that are broader than the
radula of the snail, but not in continuous trails. Also, the selection of place
does not depend on the colour, so it seems unlikely that the snails are in
search of trace elements for their diet. Clearly, also, we can’t use this
behaviour as a test of colour vision.
The famous Australian artist Stephen Holland, who has won the 1997 Gordon
Samstag scholarship to work at the Slade School of Art in London, keeps a colony
of Helix aspersa which browse as they please on various magazine covers
to create works of art, but I find that they prefer New Scientist.
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Could you please explain why and how you produce this special attraction in
the outside surface of New Scientist, and advise whether the art works
are subject to VAT.
