40-year-old Pepper Apollo has been fascinated with snails ever since she saw some outside her workplace, 10 years ago. Today she is a self-described “crazy snail lady” with 150 shelled gastropods in her care.

When I first saw a short video documentary on Pepper Apollo and her pet snails, I though it was just a gimmick to promote her online presence. Yes, that kind of thing happens quite a lot these days, and it usually involves wannabe Instagram influencers looking to grow their following, but it’s definitely not Pepper’s case. The UK-based woman is genuinely fascinated with snails and that becomes obvious when browsing her social media profiles. Her Facebook profile picture is a doctored version of the Mona Lisa where the protagonist’s head was replaced with that of a snail, her handle is always some variation of “crazy snail lady”, and she seems to only post about snails.

Photo: Crazy Snail Lady

“When, you’ve got 150 snails, that puts you into the crazy snail lady category,” Pepper laughingly told 60 Second Docs. “I started collecting snails about 10 years ago, I found some outside of work, then it kind of snowballed.”

The gastropod enthusiast claims that even though most people think of snails as dumb, brainless creatures, they actually have complex emotions, complex memories and decision making factors. I don’t know if any of that is scientifically proven, but she definitely knows more about snails than I ever will.

Pepper Apollo keeps her 150 snails of different breeds in stacked glass terrariums and prepares delicious meals for them every day. She claims that looking after her pets is not labor intensive at all, but that may be because it’s all a labor of love.

If you want to see just how obsessed Pepper is with snails, just check out her Instagram and Facebook. You’ll see nothing but snails, snail eggs and snail keeping guides. Like any self-respecting crazy snail lady, she is also very active on snail keeping groups and forums.