A lesson in identifying snails
A number of time now while rummaging through leaves and picking up rotting pieces of wood I have noticed a very small snail here around Seattle. The snail is rather pretty – with the body a bright blue and I have had fun taking some shots of it. However, I have often wondered what kind of snail it is.
I do not own any books on snails, so this research had to take place entirely on the Internet. As with all identifications, I’m not sure if I got it right but I think I now know what it is and I learned a bit about how to identify snails.
Snails, as one would expect, are identified by their shells. There are a number of characteristics that go into identifying a snail. Some things include.
- Width of the shell in millimeters
- The number of whorls in the shell. Whorls are the number of times the shell ‘wraps around’ and is plainly visible in the shot above, which has three and a half whorls. There is a good diagram here.
- The shape of the shell. Is it flattened or elongated with an apex?
- Does the shell have an umbilicus? This is the small little ‘loop’ in the center of the shell. The example above does have one.
- Whether the shell is ‘left handed’ or ‘right handed.’
Some excellent illustrations can be found here.
The site mentioned above is also where I think I have determined the type of snail. This appears to be the garlic snail, also called the glass snail, Oxychilus alliarius.
At first I was a bit skeptical, as this site covers the UK. However particularly here in the Pacific Northwest there are a number of travelers from the British Isles, so perhaps it made its way here. After some research, this appears to be true.
The interesting thing about these snails is they supposedly smell like garlic if you pick them up and smell them. I have to admit that I have yet to try this, but might try it out the next time to see if this hypothesis is true.
Even if I got it wrong, I learned a bit about identifying snails so it’s not a total loss!
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Tags: garlic snail, glass snail, identification, macro, photography, snail
I have noticed small snails like these crawling through grass covered in a fine dew in my yard as well. I have also seen small black snails with pointy black shells. There eyes are almost as thin as hairs. I don’t know what they are, though, besides that they’re snails.