White-lipped snail

Garden snail ( Cepaea hortensis )

The garden snail ( Cepaea hortensis ), also known as white lipped snail or garden Schnirkelschnecke, one of the snails and can easily with the closely related grove snail ( Cepaea nemoralis ) are confused.

Features

The mouth is light in the garden snail, while the grove snail has a dark muzzle. Other differences are four or more glandular appendages on the genital apparatus in C. hortensis ( with C. nemoralis there are three or less) and forked blades of the love dart. Your body is yellowish with variable brown or black stripes, which is why it is commonly referred to as Schnirkelschnecke. With a case diameter of 25 mm, it is one of the rather small snail species.

The garden snail is one of the most variable in terms of their coloration worm at all ( color polymorphism ). There are one to five dark brown spiral bands of different widths on the housings. However, some specimens of the same population have no tapes.

Occurrence and life

It is a widespread species in large parts of western and central Europe. It is active from March to October and eats not of herbaceous plants, but mainly of algae, which is why it does not occur as a pest in gardens.

We often find housing debris in so-called choke forging - stones on which song thrushes smash the auger housing.