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Climbing-snail problem is a popular problem in which people give erroneous solutions. We first give a short account of its interesting history. Distinguished mathematicians (Fibonacci, Calandri, Riess and some others) gave erroneous solutions, too! Then we provide an evidence of the problem’s amazing popularity at puzzle websites, in puzzle books, mathematics textbooks and manuals for entrance exams. Being so, it is strange that there are a few studies that explored students’ performances in solving climbing-snail problem. After these introductory considerations, we present a small-scale pilot study whose aim was to explore the influence of the correct answer positions on the students’ performances in a paper-and-pencil task based on that problem. Two multiple-choice versions of the problem, with the correct answer as the first and the last choice, were given to two different-age groups of Mexican students (N1 = 68, when the correct answer was the first choice and N2 = 81, when it was the last choice).The results suggest that students’ solving performances were influenced by the age and the position of the correct answer. When the correct answer was the first choice, older students greatly outperformed younger students, but with the correct answer as the last choice, older students were only slightly better. Finally we comment the most common procedures used by students and formulate some implications of these results for mathematics teaching.

A few considerations of climbing-snail problem: Fibonacci's error, problem's popularity and Mexican students' performances