Land snails move across surfaces using a remarkably effective mechanism known as adhesive locomotion [1]. In recent work we have shown that the adhesion used by snails can overcome a wide range of super-slippy superhy-drophobic non-stick surfaces [2]. However, we found one surface able to completely resist the adhesion of snails and this appeared to be correlated with the wetting response of the surface to droplets of surfactants. We therefore hypothesized that the super-stickiness of snails was due to a weak biosurfactant within their pedal mucus.
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