Description
Cepaea nemoralis is among the largest and because of its polymorphism and bright colours one of the most easily identified snails in Western Europe. The colour of the shell of Cepaea nemoralis is very variable, reddish, brownish, yellow or whitish, with or without dark brown colour bands. Apertural lip usually dark brown, rarely white. The umbilicus is narrow but open in juveniles, closed in adults. For every colour variant names were established in the 1800s; this was later abandoned. The surface of the shell is semi-glossy, and it has from 4½ to 5½ whorls.
The width of the shell is 18–25 mm. The height of the shell is 12–22 mm.
The animal is moderately slow and not very shy. In Haus der Natur Cismar this species is used to demonstrate snail behaviour to children.
Similar species:
- Cepaea vindobonensis is less intensively coloured.
- Cepaea nemoralis differs from Cepaea hortensis usually by its dark lip. In areas where lip colour is variable, dissection is necessary.This species is usually mistaken to be Cepaea hortensis, because of the similarity in shell color and design. Cross-section of love darts shows a cross with simple blades, Cepaea hortensis has bifurcated blades. Cepaea hortensis has 4 or more branches of body light with reddish or brownish hue, upper side often slightly darker, tentacles darker and 15 mm long. Cepaea nemoralis is closely related to the white-lipped snail, Cepaea hortensis, and shares much the same habitat. The grove snail is usually the larger of the two species when mature, but the principal difference is that the adult grove snail almost always has a dark brown lip to its shell, whilst adults of Cepaea hortensis almost always have a white lip. However, this distinguishing feature is not entirely reliable, as there is at least one morph of the grove snail which also has a white lip. When the identity of an adult individual is questionable, and it is necessary to distinguish the two species, a dissection can be used in order to examine the anatomy: the structure of the love dart is quite different in the two species, as are the vaginal mucus glands.
Read more about this topic: Grove Snail
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