THERE has been an outbreak of snails in Brighton. I’ve noticed these colourful molluscs popping up all over the place.

Snails are very interesting creatures. They can feel, they can see, but they cannot hear. They are one of the very few animals that we can find in the sea, on land and in freshwater.

In France they are a delicacy. In England we find that odd, if not repulsive. But we have no qualms about eating many other types of molluscs, from scallops to squid. Ordinary, humble garden snails are not the ones I’ve been noticing.

The snails I see in Brighton are in aid of the Martlets hospice. The message is simple, slow down, enjoy life a bit more and spend more time with the people you love. There are decorative snails from Brighton Marina to Hove Lagoon. Hopefully it will raise as much money, if not more, than the snowdogs did in 2016.

Normally we overlook snails, but these giant ones will be impossible to ignore. As much as we might like to forget these animals exist, it’s very difficult. In real life we treat them as pests that chomp their way through our plants in the garden, laying poison to eradicate them. What we often forget is that these strange creatures have a very long history on earth.

We can trace early molluscs back over 480 million years. Many species and families have died out, but the fact they are still with us is quite remarkable. It shows just how well evolution can modify a simple creature to cope with all sorts of different environments.

If you look closely at the shells of snails and other molluscs, you’ll see that they often coil or form a spiral. Generally, they are right-handed coils and spirals. A few snails can have a left-handed coil, but these are quite rare. It brings with it problems for the poor left-handed snail. They cannot mate with a right-handed snail. Snails are hermaphrodites, that is they have both male and female genitalia, but they do mate and exchange sperm and eggs.

The problem for left-handed snails is that their genitalia are in the reverse position of a right-handed snail. If they try to mate, it doesn’t work. The courtship of snails, the way that they attract mates, can last for anything between two and 12 hours – that’s some staying power for a small, slow creature.

One snail can have up to 450 hatchlings. Snail eggs are also eaten in some countries, it’s known as “white caviar”.

We tend not to think of snails as predators, but nature is full of surprises. Some snails will consume their newly-hatched siblings, a form of cannibalism, but one marine mollusc, the Cone snail, is poisonous.

It produces a highly toxic venom that it uses to paralyse its prey. The venom contains a neurotoxin that blocks nerve impulses. This may make it useful as a painkiller, blocking severe pain impulses in humans, but these have yet to be developed and tested.

Snails don’t feature much in our popular culture, though from my own childhood Brian the snail from the Magic Roundabout sticks in my mind. Brian, or Ambroise as he was known in the original French version, liked rocks and apparently was in love with Ermintrude the cow.

Dougal was always insulting Brian from what I remember. Brian was not the fastest character in the garden.

Snail racing, a somewhat contradictory term, is popular in the UK. This year’s snail racing world champion is called Hosta, who had a race winning time of three minutes and ten seconds over a 33cm course.

Unlike a normal race, run on a track, the snail racing championship is “run” on a course that consists of concentric circles, the winner being the first snail to enter the innermost circle. Hosta beat 190 highly trained “athletic” snails to win the coveted title.

As well as raising awareness and money for the charity, such ventures have another less obvious benefit. They bring people within the community together, they can act as a talking point.

As I went through the centre of Sussex last Saturday, it was great seeing young and old people alike taking photos with the snails, laughing and chatting with others who had stopped to admire these unique, public and accessible artworks. If you want to find all the snails, why not download the snailspace app on your smartphone. The snails will be auctioned off on December 4 to raise money for the Martlets Hospice.

The snails are on display from September 15 to November 18, so why not #BeMoreSnail