The Maybe Snail is an unusual quantum organism that is thought to be from the neomphaline order of shelled snails. Like the closely related Chrysomallon squamiferum or Volcano Snail, the Maybe Snail has incorporated an unusual substance into its outer shell and scutes. While the Volcano Snail uses iron sulfides as a protection from heat, the Maybe Snail incorporates quantum-entangled particles into both its shell and its physiology. This results in a snail that is both existent and nonexistent at the same time, which can occupy multiple points simultaneously or none at all, and is generally resistant to interpretation or study.

Only a handful of specimens have been documented, and only the type specimen has ever been thoroughly studied. It was discovered floating in a specimen jar marked “Empty” at the University of Chicago Biological Sciences Annex in 2007. Other than live specimens, which are generally observed near supercolliders or other high-energy particle physics sites, fossils have been discovered in predynastic Egyptian tombs, Ediacaran geological strata, and in Antarctic meteorites. Dissection of the type specimen revealed a shockingly conventional organism, given its peculiar quantum lifestyle, though its gut was curiously shortened and there was no nutrative mechanism present.

It is hypothesized that the Maybe Snail has a symbiotic relationship with a quantumophile microorganism from which it derives nourishment. The exact nature and form of this symbiosis is still theoretical, however, given that close examination of the dissected specimen showed that all microbiomes had been sterilized by the formaldehyde bath.

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