Grunt snail

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Grunt snail
Grunt snail (Cantareus apertus)

Grunt snail ( Cantareus apertus )

Systematics
Order : Lung snails (pulmonata)
Subordination : Land snails (Stylommatophora)
Superfamily : Helicoidea
Family : Schnirkelschnecken (Helicidae)
Genre : Helix
Type : Grunt snail
Scientific name
Cantareus apertus
( Born , 1778)

The Helix Aperta ( Cantareus apertus , Helix aperta ) is a snail from the family of Helicid (Helicidae). If the animal is irritated, it emits creaking or grunting noises when air is quickly expelled from the mantle cavity when it retreats into the housing; hence the name grunt snail.

Housing of Helix aperta . Mouth with a slight thickening of the mouth rim, periostracum and epiphragma

features

The case is spherical. It has about four turns with the last turn being heavily puffed up. It measures 22 to 28 × 22 to 28 mm and has no navel. The mouth is relatively large, wide and rounded, the edge of the mouth simple, blunted like a lip, rarely a little thickened, but not turned over. A faint callus sits on the wall of the mouth. The periostracum is yellowish-green, olive-green, green-brown to light brown, but not banded or patterned. The skin is relatively thin, with slight folds parallel to the growth strips. The grunting snail takes a summer dormancy and forms a thick epiphragm that closes the mouth.

The foot is relatively large with two broad, dark brown vertical stripes. The body is dark gray, the neck bar and the antennae black gray. The love arrow shows four edges.

Love arrow from Helix aperta

Geographical occurrence and habitat

The grunt is found in southern France west of the Rhone estuary, on Corsica , Sardinia and Sicily , on the Italian peninsula from Liguria to Emilia-Romagna, in Apulia , especially in Salento , the Ionian Islands, central Greece, the Aegean Islands, Cyprus and in North Africa along the Mediterranean coast. In the meantime it has also been abducted to other regions of the world, e.g. B. Australia and New Zealand .

It inhabits vineyards, field margins, gardens, abandoned cultivated land, roadsides and maquis . It occurs from sea level to about 500 m above sea level, rarely higher.

Way of life

The snail usually lives deeply buried in the ground and comes to the surface to eat. The animal is true to its location, usually the same cave is visited again and again. It probably feeds mainly on fresh herbaceous plants .

In studies on specimens of the grunt snail from Tunisia, it was found that reproductive behavior was triggered by short-day conditions or was inhibited by long-day conditions. Two generations were produced within 10 months under short day conditions, a temperature of 20 ° C, high humidity and sufficient feed. Up to 40 eggs per clutch were laid under breeding conditions. The diameter of the egg is 2.3 to 3 mm. Under the above ideal conditions, the young hatch as small miniature adults after 12 days. The breeding success was 80 to 90%.

Grunts are dormant between April and September, when they spend this time in a burrow. They close their house with a lime lid.

Keeping as a pet

The grunt is sometimes carried north from its home country in lettuce or cabbage. Like other snails (e.g. agate snails ), it can be kept there as a pet. Salad, vegetables (such as carrots and cucumbers, including sweet potatoes) and lichen-covered branches are often accepted as food. In addition, grunts need lime (eggshells or sepia pulp) to build their house.

Hazard, protection and harmful effects

The grunting snail has become rare in many areas of its original range due to collecting activities for food purposes. Collecting for commercial purposes is therefore prohibited in France. In other regions, especially where it was introduced, e.g. B. Australia and New Zealand, it occurs occasionally as a pest on crops.

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literature

  • Rosina Fechter and Gerhard Falkner: molluscs. 287 pp., Mosaik-Verlag, Munich 1990 (Steinbach's Nature Guide 10) ISBN 3-570-03414-3
  • Michael P. Kerney, RAD Cameron & Jürgen H. Jungbluth: The land snails of Northern and Central Europe. 384 pp., Paul Parey, Hamburg & Berlin 1983 ISBN 3-490-17918-8

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helix aperta , page 339 in Born, I. 1778. Index rerum naturalium Musei Cæsarei Vindobonensis. Pars I.ma. Testacea. Directory of the natural rarities of the Imperial and Royal Naturalien Cabinet in Vienna. First part. Switchgear. - pp. [1-40], 1-458, [1-82]. Vindobonæ. (Kraus). [1]
  2. ↑ a b c A. de Vaufleury, F. Gimbert: [Life history traits of the snail Helix aperta Born from Tunisia raised in a laboratory environment: influence of photoperiod]. In: Comptes rendus biologies. Volume 332, Number 9, September 2009, pp. 795-805, doi : 10.1016 / j.crvi.2009.04.004 , PMID 19748454 .
  3. ^ Ewald Frömming: Biology of the Central European Landgastropods. 404 p., Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1954

On-line

Web links

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