How Slow Is a Snail’s Pace?

The snail must be the slowest-moving animal on earth. Some snails can crawl more than 150 feet in an hour, but among ordinary land snails, the fastest ever timed took three minutes to crawl just two feet.

This equals a speed of only 40 feet per hour, or about 7/1000 of a mile per hour! At that rate, it would take a snail about 51/2 days to crawl just a single mile!

And that’s the speed of the fastest snail timed. Slower snails have moved at a rate of just two feet an hour!