Up until this Summer I had not heard of an Umbrella snail (or shell). It was when we found one at Shelly’s Beach, Eden on a Rocky Shore Ramble that I first learnt about this strange but wonderful creature.

The Umbrella snail (Umbraculum umbraculum) is a large marine gastropod mollusc in the group Opisthobranchia. Opisthobranchs are characterized by two pairs of tentacles and a single gill behind and to the right of the heart.

The Umbrella snail has a flat white shell on top that is a a cover for their gills and in no way works as protection for the whole body. They are an orange-yellow colour with what looks like warts all over the body.

The name Umbrella snail comes from when it lifts its shell from its body and it looks like an umbrella over the snail.

We had the Umbrella snail at the centre for just over a week when the egg sac appeared on January 23, 2014. They lay millions of orange coloured eggs in a jelly like sac that resembles a frilled ribbon.

It was exciting to look in every day to the tank to see if the eggs had begun hatching yet and on February 4th I noticed that they had. I could tell because the small orange dots (eggs) had started disappearing from the gel they were in.

With the help of a volunteer I collected a small section of eggs and put them under the microscope to see if they were really hatching and if we could see them moving. And we could!

They were tiny little blobs of movement but still so cute. You could make out each individual larvae and see them freely swimming in the petri dish.

Watch our  Youtube video to see them in action.