Frequently Asked Questions

A while ago (I'm quick I know!) I noticed that I was getting asked very similar questions on a frequent basis - so here it is - the frequently asked question page! This is not to say that I don't love receiving snailey mail, but hopefully this page can answer any urgent questions. Like the rest of the snail site, this page will grow as my pool of information does!

Answers are by me [A] or the appropriate authors, to whom I am very grateful.

I was wondering how large your snails will get and how many years will they live?

The average age (apparently!) is 5 - 6 years, but they can live up to 8 - 10 years, though as mine are only youngsters I haven't had any die of old age yet! :) As to size, well, that depends on species ... (I'm going by shell length here!) the fulica grow to about 100 mm (Herc is about 95 mm) though they can grow bigger, and my margies are about 150 mm (though they can get a *lot* bigger than that), and the A. achatina are supposed to be bigger still - this is theory from the book though, as mine are still very small babies![A]

Are there any books on Giant African Land Snails?

Only one that I know of I'm afraid! It's called Your First Giant African Land Snail by Marianne Mayes or Lucy Mann, depending on which edition you've got (the book is exactly the same!) It's available from (if you are in the UK) Pets Mart (for about £1.50), and some reptile centres also stock it. If anyone knows of any more though, I'd be really interested to know! Thanks! For more general snailey information, I just search amazon.co.uk and bookshop.co.uk for books about snails.[A]

Do you sell snails/know where I can get them/will you send me some eggs?

No, I'm afraid I don't sell snails, and I can't send eggs out either. If you're in the UK and looking for GALSs the best thing to do is go through the Yellow Pages and call up reptile centres. I have a list of these in Sussex if anyone's interested. Also have a look at any exotic pet shows in your area. For those of you in the states GALS are illegal in a lot of states, and in others you can keep smaller land snails, but you may require a permit.[A]

My snail seems to have stopped eating and isn't coming out of it's shell much either - what can I do?

Have you got a heat mat for your snail? Sounds like it could have gone into hibernation. You need to either use a heat mat, or keep it in a warm place (and spray it with warm water). If you can get a mat it's best - they're about £11 for a small one, you don't need one that covers the whole tank. Too much or too little moisture can also cause hibernation.

Leave the mat on all the time, and leave the tank on it - they take a week to start to get back to normal - takes this time for them to decide that the heat will be constant, and won't disappear suddenly. Don't do what I did one year - keep moving the tank on and off the heat source - they get confused and it takes even longer to get them out! :) You could also try holding the snail under warm running water, or popping him in a saucer, but make sure it's not too hot or deep!

Another thing I found with mine - if they are out but not eating, try putting them in the middle of the tank, or away from wherever they like to hide, in the case of mine it's their tunnel, and then ring them with food, so that to get back to their hiding place they need to cross it - they tend to take a nibble on the way! I'm still doing this every night with my biggies, and it seems to have worked so far.[A]

What's the radula?

The radula is the snails tongue. It is covered with these little rough teeth like things. If you ever get to look at aquatic snails when their bellies are against the glass you will usually be able to see their radula scraping away. I've had some of the native land snails in America start scraping away on my skin with their radula. That is quite a sensation!!!! It tickles, but it gets kind of unpleasant after a while. [Abby Maley]

What's the best type of top for the tank?

When my brother started a reptile tank the pet store owner told him not to put a glass top on because of the moisture. She said that the bacteria would grow, because of it and risk the lives of the reptilians. A better top is a plastic screen or gauze. [Abby Maley]

One that allows plenty of ventilation in others words - fulica especially can die if kept too moist.[A]

How many species of Achatina are there?

How many species of Achatina are there? Well, as usual, the zoologists cannot agree entirely because it depends on exactly how you define a species. But in Southern Africa alone, for example, there are about 30 distinguishable 'species'. If you were a real 'lumper' you might be able to get these down to a dozen or so. Some of these are quite different. Metachatina kraussi is a monster, with a huge heavy white shell, a shining black lip and a huge black body. It lives in the hot sub-tropical bush of Kwazulu-Natal. Achatina zebra (my favourite) has a wonderful stripey shell and a striking yellow and brown stripey body to match and can be found in the warm temperate coastal forests of the Eastern Cape. A. immaculata is found in the relatively dry Limpopo valley and also in the Kruger National Park. It seemingly intergrades with A. patherina. There are species that live in the montane forests of the Drakensberg mountains (up to altitudes of 1600 m/5000 ft if I recall correctly, and well above the winter frost line) and others that eke out an existance in the dry bush of northern Namibia/Botswana). There is one with an incredibly fragile shell that lives in the swamps of Malawi. There are many others too, including species with uniform golden-brown shells (the kids & I call these 'blondes' ) The current Achatina professionals (and there are not a lot of them) would probably agree that there are about 100 species. However some of these can not be told apart without dissection. [Mike Cortie -Conchological Society of Southern Africa, South Africa]

I'm doing a school project and need to know how fast snails can move?

Well, mine move very slowly and take ages to do anything, but when I was asked this question last year I actually timed various Helix aspersa, or common garden snails, sliming across the kitchen table (yeah, it's great fun in our house at weekends!!)

I put the chosen 6 through their paces on a smooth formica table and the side of a plastic tank (smooth!). Details of snails as follows ( I used a variety of sizes for A, B and C, and three more evenly matched sizes for X, Y and Z):

Snail:          Shell size (across from point of shell to other side):


A                2 cm
B                0.75 cm
C                0.5 cm


X               2.5 cm
Y               3 cm
Z              2.5 cm



Results are as follows:


FLAT TABLE - distance travelled in 1 minute


Snail A - 1st run = 8.5 cm, 2nd run = 5.5 cm
Snail B - 1st run = 6.5 cm, 2nd run = 7 cm
Snail C - 1st run = 4.5 cm, 2nd run = 9 cm


Snail X - 1st run = 6 cm, 2nd run = 11 cm
Snail Y - 1st run = didn't move, 2nd run = 8 cm
Snail Z - 1st run = 6.5 cm, 2nd run = 7.5 cm


UP SIDE OF TANK - distance travelled in 1 minute


Snail A - 1st run = 10.5 cm, 2nd run = 12.5 cm
Snail B - 1st run = 13 cm, 2nd run = 13 cm
Snail C - 1st run = 9 cm, 2nd run = 11 cm


Snail X - 1st run = 9 cm, 2nd run = 8 cm
Snail Y - 1st run = 8.25 cm, 2nd run = 10 cm
Snail Z - 1st run = 7.5 cm, 2nd run = 9.25 cm

You'll have to multiply the above results by 60 to get your hourly rate! Guess it won't take into account the amount of time they spend stopping, going in circles, eating and general fatigue!

Do snails have a sense of smell, and can they hear?

I've been on the case for the sense of smell thing - molluscs including the gastropod snails have patches of sensory epithelia (skin) near the gills (or lungs in land dwelling forms) call OSPHRADIA (singular osphradium) and these are effectively their noses!!

They don't have any ears as such, but obviously sense vibration and movement mainly with the large foot muscles. [Claire Reader]

Any interesting snail projects you can recommend for children?

I have come up with an interesting project for anyone with children (or a curious nature) If British pond snails are raised in VERY brightly lit water (I use tubes), that is kept warm. They grow very rapidly and develop a clear shell, and you can see the heart beating. Very interesting to watch, if your into that sort of thing! [Ross Anders]

Depending on how much time you have... you could raise some with a cuttle bone and some with out a cuttle bone and show the difference in their shells from the calcium (from the cuttle bone), If you don't have much time you could time the travel times on different types of materials ( ie. how long it takes them to cross glass, paper, wood, stone, etc.) OR... There's a site that makes hand and body lotions with the slime from snails. it's supposed to be very similar to egg whites and makes your skin very soft. You could get some info from there and do a report on the uses of snails. I don't remember the name of the site.

You might also want to add how snails have become a pest in some places and what those places have done to handle the problem. There's a site that talks about Apple snails in South east Asia somewhere (I can't remember where) that became a pest in rice patties and ponds so they started to eat the snails and collected them and now raise them for food. In Florida and California, Achatina Fulica became such a problem that the US department of Agriculture made it Illegal to possess one of these snails. If caught with one you are subject to a $5000 fine and up to 5 years in Jail. Pretty harsh for a snail, but they were destroying entire Orange Groves over night! Big eaters!

Or for a very simple project you could just draw a diagram of the snail's internal organs (with a close up of the mouth parts or Radula) and show how snails eat, move, breathe and reproduce. You can also show the difference between land snails, water snails, sea snails, slugs, clams, oysters, sea slugs and all different types of Mollusks and maybe a little of their evolution.[Paul G Fischer]

If the snails are hermaphrodites, then I only need one to breed, right?

They are Hermaphrodites. This means they have both male and female....gonads. The problem is ( I guess) the male parts can't reach the female parts. Kinda like you trying to put your elbow in your ear...ya can't do it! Now It seems the female parts can store sperm from a previous fertilisation (or mating)but from another snail of course! Now If your snails mated before one died, then there is a chance you could end up with babies that could appear to come from a self-fertilisation. [Paul G Fischer]

How does a snail move?

There are two sets of muscles controlling the foot of the snail and they contract one set after the other to give a wave effect (from the back to the front in common snails I believe). A series of waves in the muscles produces forward movement. [Claire Reader]

I would like to know the complete taxonomy for the giant african snail. that means that I would like to know the kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.

According to the Zoological record, the taxonomy of Achatina fulica is:

Mollusca

   Gastropoda

       Pulmonata

           Stylommatophora

                Achatinacea

                    Achatina fulica

[Mike Cortie]

How does a snail grow it's shell?

Shell deposition is quite a complicted thing, but basically the shell has 4 layers the outer layer being the periostracum which is tanned and hard. The other layers are the calcareous layers and the shell is enlarged by addition of mineral from the outer edge of the mantle to the lips of the aperture. The mantle epithelium (outer layer) has shell secreting glands in it and there are also mantle edge glands that secrete periostracum around a periostracal groove. For a picture see Barnes and Ruppert - Invertebrate Zoology page 383 (6th ed).[Claire Reader]

There's also a bit about the shell on the anatomy page.

Why does my snail eat it's own shell?

Ingestion of the shell is odd but may signify a lack in calcium thus the snail is satisfing it's needs by absorbing it's own reserve.[Claire Reader]

..... and I always wondered if another reason they do it may be to smooth rough edges on the shell that are irritating them, but that's just a theory :) Whatever the reason, unless it's very excessive, they never seem to do much damage. [A]

Which countries can giant land snails be found in?

Depending upon the species, members of the Family Achatinidae can be found throughout much of Africa. Here's a rundown on a few:

Achatina achatina...Liberia-Nigeria
A. albopicta... Kenya-Tanzania
A. balteata... Cameroon-Angola
A. craveni...Zaire; Zimbabwe
A. stuhlmanni...Uganda
A. glutinosa...Nyassaland
A. fulica...East Africa (and very widely introduced throughout worldwide tropics)
A. iostoma...Cameroon
A. panthera...Zimbabwe; Zambia; Malawi; Nyassaland; Mauritius
A. reticulata...Tanzania; Zanzibar
A. schweinfurthi...East Africa
A. tavaresiana...Angola
A. tincta...Angola; Zaire
A. varicosa...South Africa
A. weynesi...Zaire
A. zebra...South Africa
A. tracheia...S.W. Africa
A. semisculpta...Angola
A. slylvatica...Zaire
A. papyracea...Cameroon
Archachatina degneri...Gold Coast
Arch. bicarinata (a "left-handed", or sinestral species) Islands in the Gulf of Guinea, W. Africa
Arch. gaboonensis...Gabon
Arch. glutinosa...Malawi
Arch. marginata (aka "margie")...Cameroon-Zaire
Arch. ventricosa...Sierra Leone and Liberia; India (introduced)
Metachatina kraussi...South Africa
Burtoa nilotica...Sudan.

There are many more species, and those listed above may also be found in other places.

Achatina fulica, having been introduced all over the world (including Miami, Florida back in the late 1960's...only after great effort were they finally exterminated) is a very hardy species. It has adapted to many habitats. It is widely viewed as a pest species in places introduced, since it has no natural predators in these places, reproduces rapidly, and is quite fond of whatever man is growing in these areas. In Hawaii, a friend found dozens crawling in the streets in Honolulu. Another friend in American Samoa says they must clean them off the airport runways, and on rainy days it is difficult to drive there without running them over by the scores...so can they live almost everywhere it stays warm, they eat almost anything vegetable/fruit...I think they'd be happy with whatever you can provide them. [Ken]

Are there any differences in the coloration of a. fulica shells?

I'm beginning to get a good series of A. fulica from around the world. Not enough shells to really know if any differences are geographically induced, or just variations which would occur naturally, wherever they live. Calcium carbonate deficient diets probably explain the thinner, lighter weight shells.

Philippines: Shells rather thick and very solid. Upper whorls well flammulated (wavy stripes), body whorl almost solid yellow-brown. Inside of outer lip with a dark brown edge.

Thailand: Shells lighter in structure than those from P.I. Upper whorls and body whorl quite flammulate. Overall darker brown color. Inner edge of outer lip brown.

Sri Lanka: Shells light to moderately heavy. Apical flammulations extending partly to the body whorl. Less brown in color, with a pinkish tinge (somewhat resembling the wider spaced striping as in A. marginata). Trace of brown or absent on lip edge.

French Polynesia: Very lightweight shell. Flammulate throughout, except for area closest to growing edge of lip. Pinkish brown in color, very light brown lip edge. Delicate beauty.

Hawaii: Similar in most respects to the Philippines shells, except very lightweight.

Miami, Florida, USA: Heavy, thick shells. Much lighter in color than any of the above. Flammulations extending through half the body whorl. Trace of brown at lip edge.

Seychelles: Heavy shell. Dark brown stripes (not as wavy - straight in places). By far the most richly colored fulica I have. Very dark and wide brown band inside lip edge. Similar to shells from Thailand. [Ken]

Hope you found this page useful!

Annette