Immediately after the rain on a warm summer afternoon is the best time to find these interesting manatee tree snails (Drymaeus dormani)), which are freshwater snails. The moisture in the rain is important to help them keep up the water in their soft bodies. The rain and heat are also the best way to get algae growing, and algae is one of their favorite foods. As well as algae, they love many types of plants, which is part of the reason that gardeners generally dislike them. Since I’m not a gardener, I don’t really mind them, and I really enjoy watching them eat algae off of my fence and house siding. If you watch them carefully, you can actually see the food as it is being swallowed. To me, that’s pretty cool. The other thing I find enjoyable about watching them is to see them eat intersecting trails through the algae. It eventually creates a complex, abstract pattern of clean and dirty spots, but watching that pattern come about is fascinating. This particular snail was crawling along the large leaf of an arrowhead plant enjoying the water that was on the leaf. I decided to try to make the photo a little more artistic by changing the shell color of the snail, and making some of the snail black and white. To polish it off, I also decided to turn the background black and white. Now the snail really pops, especially when given its otherworldly color.