Snails are particularly active after a rain shower. Even on the Max Planck Campus in Potsdam-Golm, common brown-lipped snails (Cepaea nemoralis) leave behind shiny trails of mucus. Researchers from the "Biomaterials" department saw the slime as a promising natural material. The snail does not produce just one type of slime but can vary it as needed, making it liquid, solid, sticky or slippery.
For the research team, snail mucus became the subject of a materials science analysis: How does the snail produce completely different material properties using the same basic building blocks?
The researchers provide the answer in a study published in the journal Science in which they demonstrate, in detail for the first time, the biochemical recipes the banded snail uses to tailor its mucus to different tasks.
"Snail mucus may seem unremarkable at first glance, but it is an incredibly versatile material," says Dr. Franziska Jehle, the study's corresponding author. "The fact that the snail can specifically alter the properties of its mucus using the same basic building blocks is what makes it so fascinating for research."
The building blocks of snail mucus
To understand how nature produces this diversity of materials, the researchers analyzed five different types of mucus. They examined mucus that enables locomotion, acts as a strong adhesive on surfaces, protects the animal from dehydration, seals the shell during prolonged periods of rest and serves as a defense mechanism.
They found that the snail consistently uses the same components for the different types of mucus, mixing them in varying proportions. The chemical building blocks are proteins—primarily collagen—and calcium.
The researchers were surprised to identify collagen VI as a key component of the mucus. The protein is primarily known for its structural role in human skin, bones and joints. Together with disordered calcium carbonate—which the snail stores in its glandular tissue and releases along with the mucus as needed—the proportion of collagen VI plays a decisive role in controlling the properties of the various mucus types.
Apparently, the snail uses the total amount of proteins and the proportion of collagen VI to alter the density of the protein network in the mucus. This has a direct effect on its mechanical properties: The denser the protein network, the tougher the mucus. Calcium, in its ionic form, serves either to cross-link the mucus or, as calcite, to reinforce the material.
Learning from nature
"The findings of this study extend far beyond the biology of the snail," says Peter Fratzl, co-author of the study and director at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces. "Natural materials achieve an enormous variety of functions with just a few building blocks. Understanding the principles behind this is of great importance for the development of sustainable materials."
Following the model of snail mucus, for example, it may be possible to produce environmentally friendly adhesives, functional coatings and materials for medical applications.
Publication details
Mariella Gabler et al, Calcium tunes snail mucus–based materials to multiple functions, Science (2026). DOI: 10.1126/science.adx7367
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Citation: One snail, five slimes: Collagen and calcium reshape mucus for different jobs (2026, August 7) retrieved 7 August 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-08-snail-slimes-collagen-calcium-reshape.html
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