Denise Furr keeps pace with snails

Denise Furr would make a fantastic matchmaker if she ever decided to leave her position as environmental educator for Reedy Creek Nature Center.

I know because she almost had me dating a snail – and I’m a happily married woman.

Furr, who’s 53 and lives in Gaston County, is also the center’s malacologist – one who studies mollusks – and she spends her days with a particular kind: the land snail.

At least 75 species of land snails thrive in the southern Piedmont, and Furr’s job is to unearth a specimen of each and collect its scientific data.

So far she’s at 50 species, and the task has created an affection for the little critters that she’s happy to share.

“They’re fascinating creatures,” she said. “Each can make different kinds of slime.”

It’s true Furr sees snails differently from most, but after a while, she can convince anyone – even me, who thinks the slimy goopy slowpokes have nothing to offer – that they are actually great catches.

Munching nearby on a baby carrot, a tiger snail rested in an aquarium. The species, although not common in the Piedmont yet, is slowly making its way here from the coast.

Furr lifted him out of captivity and began her pitch.

“He’s not from around here,” she said. “See his cool mustache?” As if on cue, the mysterious snail uncurled a long and impressive handlebar mustache.

She appealed to my tidy, orderly side.

“Snails are natural decomposers,” added Furr, selling his eagerness to take care of the trash. “They break down the leaf litter and decaying matter.”

She even worked the dangerous, bad boy angle.

The tiger snail goes after what it wants. “He’s carnivorous. He eats other snails,” she said. “He can track one from its slime and hunt it down.”

And best of all, he’s not going to leave anyone anytime soon. He is, after all, a snail.

As I gazed into his eyes, which perched atop two long eyestalks, I suddenly felt a warmth replace where a previous repulsion had worn-in a longstanding residence.

That’s when Furr moved in to close the deal. “He’s beginning to estivate,” she said. “To chill out for a little while.”

And he liked me, too.

As I began to soften up on the animal, I reached out with my finger and poked his shiny, slick top, and determined snails really don’t get the attention they deserve.

Hatched from a single egg with one whorl on their shell, they’ll grow, accumulating several more whorls, for at least four more years.

“Everybody knows what a snail is. Everybody sees them, but they don’t pay much attention to them, and snails are a very important part of the ecosystem,” said Furr. “They are one of the indicator species of how the environment is doing. Because they are in such constant contact with water, any change in the environment affects them a lot.”

For those still unconvinced of the snail’s attributes, Furr has someone new in mind: the slug.

“A slug is a type of snail that has evolved to not have a shell,” she said, beginning another pitch. “It’s an advantage if you don’t have a shell, because you can squeeze into crevices and cracks that you can’t squeeze into with a shell.”