Removal of the snail was done with a tweezers.  I grasped it by the shell, careful not to break it, and worked the snail away from the starfish.  I did have to use the pin to pry the foot of the snail up in order to lift it out.  This page focuses on the snail, the next page will conclude the study, and contains the pictures of "after extraction" (an inside look at the arm of the starfish and what remains).

Here you will see what we find once the snail is removed.

The red arrow points to the flesh of the starfish that remained.

The blue arrows point to small pieces of the snail that were found throughout the arm in various places.  I'm not entirely sure that all of these fragments belong to this snail.  They could be the beginnings of new snails.  Without further tools in which to use for this experiment, that is something we will never know.

From another angle:

Outlined in red is the flesh, and in blue fragments of the snail as I began to pick them out.  They appear here to be just spots, but were in fact, "globs" of snail flesh, and stuck tightly to the inside surface of the arm.

This is a side view of the arm with the snail alongside it, after extraction.

I began to empty all contents of the arm at this point, looking for further signs of snail remains.  The lower right hand corner shows the small amount of flesh that was lifted out of the arm.

This is a clear view of the snail.  Outlined in red is the part of the shell that was seen protruding from the hole in the arm before the amputation.

The shell appears to curve in a spiral shape.  The outline in red shows the edge of the shell, and in these pictures, you can see the foot of the snail protruding. 

NOTE:  Throughout this extraction, the snail never retreated back into it's shell.  I'm not sure if this means that it was no longer alive, or if this is just the nature of this type of snail.

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