'' Macularia sylvatica'' is a medium-sized species of air-breathing dextral

land snail A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. ''Land snail'' is the common name for terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have gastropod shell, shel ...

, a

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on o ...

pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Helicidae. It was once seen as a close relative of the grove snail (''Cepaea nemoralis''), but does in fact not belong to the genus ''

Cepaea ''Cepaea'' is a genus of large air-breathing land snails, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the family Helicidae. The shells are often brightly coloured and patterned with brown stripes. The two living species in ...

'' at all.

Geographic distribution and habitat

This west-Alpine species occurs in Germany, Italy, France, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.Francisco W. Welter-Schultes: ''European non-marine molluscs, a guide for species identification = Bestimmungsbuch für europäische Land- und Süsswassermollusken.'' A1-A3 S., 679 S., Q1-Q78 S., Göttingen, Planet Poster Ed., 2012 , (S. 368) The vertical distribution extends from 265 m to 2560 m a.s.l.Turner H, Kuiper JGJ, Thew N, Bernasconi R, Rütschi J, Wüthrich M & Gosteli M: ''Atlas der Mollusken der Schweiz und Liechtensteins.'' Centre suisse de catographie de la faune/Schweizerische Entomologische Gesellschaft/Eidg. Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landschaft, 1998 , It lives in similar habitats as ''C. nemoralis'', such as woods, dunes and grassland; however ''M. sylvatica'' tolerates wetter and colder mountain areas.

Description

''Macularia sylvatica'' is generally similar in appearance to ''C. nemoralis'', although the shell is smaller, not as colourful, and not as variable. The spire of the shell is blunt. The most obvious character is the formation of the colour bands on the shell, where at least the upper two appear to be "interrupted".

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q2946309, from2=Q1002266 Helicidae Gastropods described in 1801