I was doing my pond clean-up earlier this week. I noticed the small clear jelly like masses on the leaves and on the plastic pots. I recognize them from Robin's "clean up pictures" as most likely snail eggs. My question is why are some clear roundish and very gelatinous while the others are flat to the leaf or pots and have a very yellow hue to them. ? I am thinking differnent snail species?? Thanks.. :)

Hello donnarie, & welcome to the forum! :)

Snails have never lasted very long in my pond... so I don't have knowledge regarding the eggs.
I'm sure somebody that knows more about them will be around later to help out.

Did your snails make it through winter? What zone do you live in?

PG

They could be different snail species (if you have different ones). They could also just be egg masses at different ages of development. As the eggs age, they collect dirt, algae, etc. and become more stiff and dirty yellow looking. My guess is that you are comparing newly-laid eggs to ones that were laid a week or two ago.

Hi again,

I've actually done a little experiment and brought a few of each of the 2 different eggs inside ( I put them in separate tupperwares with about 1 cup of the pond water in each of the 2 tupperwares), and waited for them to hatch. It took about 1 week.

Believe me without my handy dandy kiddy microscope, i would have seen nothing in the first 2 days.... or even now..They were so tiny!
I may be mistaken but the clear round gelatinous masses (size of a finger nail) all hatched (or seemed to) and they remind me of ?common pond snails, while the other tupperware eggs remains a mystery because i have a few of what I think are the larger snails with the round circular shell BUT I also have a VERY small microscopic damselfly larvae..soooo cute. ??
I may have to do another experiment

My husband thinks i am nuts and wants me to put them all back in the pond which I may do today if the pond water temp is close to the tupperware water temp.!
Whatever..
LOL