This is too stinkin’ cute not to post.

Vicki Isley and Paul Smith, researchers at UK’s Bournemouth University, have decided to take the term “snail mail” literally and created an email delivery service called Real Snail Mail.

Real Snail Mail is a web service that uses live snails to deliver email. The delivery could take years; as a matter of fact the average delivery time is 615 days, 15 hours, 37 minutes and 27 seconds.

How does it work? According to their website:

Our snails are equipped with a miniaturised electronic circuit and antenna, enabling them to be assigned messages. Your message is collected from a despatch centre at one end of their enclosure. Once associated with the tiny electronic chip on the snail’s shell your message will be carried around until the snail chances by the drop off point. Here more hardware collects your message and forwards it to its final destination.

Animal activists need not worry about the snails, as they apparently live in “Five Star Accommodations.” Each snail even has a profile, and you can see two of them below:

I would love to try the service myself, but I had some trouble figuring out how to do so via their website. Can anyone help?

Via Bit Rebels.