The white-lipped snail or garden banded snail, scientific name ''Cepaea hortensis'', is a medium-sized

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of air-breathing land snail, a

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. 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 or near the ground, as opposed to ...

pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Helicidae. It is a close relative of the

Grove Snail The grove snail, brown-lipped snail or Lemon snail (''Cepaea nemoralis'') is a species of air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc. MolluscaBase eds. (2020). MolluscaBase. Cepaea nemoralis (Linnaeus, 1758). Accessed ...

Shell description

The white-lipped

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class G ...

is very slightly smaller than the grove snail, the shell being usually about in maximum dimension. Like the grove snail (brown-lipped snail), it has considerable variability in

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

colour and banding, although the shell of the white-lipped snail is perhaps most commonly yellow, with or without brown banding. The principal distinguishing feature of this species is a white lip at the

aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An ...

of the shell in adult specimens, although very rarely the brown-lipped grove snail can have a white lip, and ''vice versa''.

Distribution

The native distribution of this species is

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

and

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...

.Kerney M.P. & Cameron R. A. D., 1979. “A field guide to the land snails of Britain and northwestern Europe’’, Collins, London. The range of the white-lipped snail extends closer to the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

in Northern Europe than the range of the grove snail. The white-lipped snail has been introduced to northeastern parts of the USA, but has not established itself as successfully as the

brown-lipped snail The grove snail, brown-lipped snail or Lemon snail (''Cepaea nemoralis'') is a species of air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc. MolluscaBase eds. (2020). MolluscaBase. Cepaea nemoralis (Linnaeus, 1758). Accessed ...

Habitat

The two species share many of the same habitats, such as woods, dunes and grassland, but the white-lipped snail tolerates wetter and colder areas than the brown-lipped snail can.

Life cycle

This species of snail creates and uses

love dart A love dart (also known as a gypsobelum, shooting darts, or just as darts) is a sharp, calcareous or chitinous dart which some hermaphroditic land snails and slugs create. Love darts are both formed and stored internally in a dart sac. These ...

s during mating. The size of the egg is 2 mm.Heller J. 2001: ''Life History Strategies''. in Barker G. M. (ed.):
The biology of terrestrial molluscs
'. CABI Publishing, Oxon, UK, 2001, . 1-146, cited page: 428.

References

External links

''Cepaea hortensis''
at

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taxonomy, short description, distribution, biology, status (threats), images
''Cepaea hortensis''
images at

Encyclopedia of Life The ''Encyclopedia of Life'' (''EOL'') is a free, online encyclopedia intended to document all of the 1.9 million living species known to science. It is compiled from existing trusted databases curated by experts and with the assistance of ...

Images of shell variations in ''C. hortensis''Snail white
- Images of shell variations in ''C. hortensis'' Thai language translate {{Taxonbar, from=Q427854 Helicidae Gastropods described in 1774