Ive got snails! why?

General Questions
#1

I was just watering the thai chili pepper plants that i planted in my space age orb terrarium and I have snails! I live on the 4th floor. The terrarium has soil that I bought in a bag and the seeds were sprouted from chilis I use for cooking.

Where did my snails come from?

Did they come in as larvae or eggs during the rain (the terrarium sits next to an open window so they get as much natural light and water as possible)? Do snail eggs sometime come in with the soil you can buy at the store? Did the snails come with the flowers that used to live in the terrarium?
I like having them in there, but I want to know why Im randomly growing snails!

#2

They could have been in the soil. Last winter I found one of their shell-less relatives, i.e. a slug, in a bag of Miracle Grow potting mix.

I wouldn’t be so thrilled to have them. Snails and slugs will eat your plants.

#3

Bonus snail question… what do baby snails look like? And why do you never see them? Are they like little slugs until they grow a shell or what? I was just thinking the other day as I was crunching my way up the garden path (Yuk) after a rain shower… you only ever see the adults. Where do they come from?

#4

Tiny versions of grown up snails.

They are very small and you have to look very hard.

Mommy and daddy snails.

#5

Many snails are hermaphrodites, it only takes one. We have a fish tank full of snails, all the offspring of a single.

Apple snails, which we thought we had, are individually male & female but the tank full of babies proves “Gary” was a look-alike. Either that or we got her already pregnant.

Baby snails start out with a teeny-tiny snails, complete with shell. Ours were visibly complete and still about the size of the ball in a ball-point pen.

#6

You need to find a spicy escargot recipe.