Trail following differs between wild and captive reared snails, Lymnaea stagnalis

Trail following has been identified in a wide variety of gastropod species, in which individuals follow mucus trails laid down previously by themselves, conspecifics or heterospecifics. Trail following may have a variety of functions across species, including energy conservation through the reduction of mucus production (Davies & Blackwell, 2007) and energy gain through trail ingestion (Hutchinson et al., 2007), nutrition by exploitation of food in mucus trails (Davies & Beckwith, 1999), homing behaviour (Cook & Cook, 1975; McFaruume, 1980), surfacing (Wells & Buckley, 1972) and locating trail-laying prey (Paine, 1963). However, a primary purpose of trail following is thought to be the location of conspecifics (Croll, 1983; Ng et al., 2013).