So according to Wildlife Informer, snails move roughly 1ft/hr, which is around 51.2 meters per week. I got some driving directions from a grocery store on the northern part of Ukraine’s east border (Продуктовый магазин «Смак», Bachivs’k, Sumy Oblast, Ukraine, 41411) to a crossing on the west border (Starovoitove Yahodyn Customs, Volyns’ka oblast, Ukraine) and that trip by road is about 850km. Because snails don’t follow roads, this introduces unspecified error. With those assumptions and numbers, that means it would take a snail around 16,602 weeks to cross Ukraine, or ~45.5 years.
That seems extremely slow, even for a snail. According to Encyclopedia Britannica it’s 8cm per minute, or at least 14 times faster.
With the same maths, that takes it 3.25 years to cross ukraine by road. Which is in fact less time than the 3.8 years that Russia has been trying to do the same.
Well, now I’m curious too.
So according to Wildlife Informer, snails move roughly 1ft/hr, which is around 51.2 meters per week. I got some driving directions from a grocery store on the northern part of Ukraine’s east border (Продуктовый магазин «Смак», Bachivs’k, Sumy Oblast, Ukraine, 41411) to a crossing on the west border (Starovoitove Yahodyn Customs, Volyns’ka oblast, Ukraine) and that trip by road is about 850km. Because snails don’t follow roads, this introduces unspecified error. With those assumptions and numbers, that means it would take a snail around 16,602 weeks to cross Ukraine, or ~45.5 years.
So yeah, it was a hyperbolic joke.
That seems extremely slow, even for a snail. According to Encyclopedia Britannica it’s 8cm per minute, or at least 14 times faster.
With the same maths, that takes it 3.25 years to cross ukraine by road. Which is in fact less time than the 3.8 years that Russia has been trying to do the same.
With different assumptions, it would be possible. And 30 cm per hour is really too slow.