Classification
Class: Gastropoda.
Family: Achatinidae.
Genus: Helix.
Species: Helix pomatia.
Habitat
This gastropod mollusk also known as apple snail is native of Europe including countries like Austria, Belgium, Germany, Romania, Sweden, Spain, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Luxembourg and most territories in the continent.
However has been moved by humans to Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas, where there is a huge industry of snail farming of this and some other edible species.
The helix pomatia habitat usually will be below 2,000 meters above the sea level in places with mild temperature and high humidity. They won’t be find in places with a lot of sun as they cannot tolerate direct sunlight or heavy rains
Outward appearance
Weight: 30 g.
Height: 4-4.5 cm.
Width: 5 cm.
Shell is creamy to light brown, with darker brown bands. The shell is almost rounded with a width of 1.2-2 inches and a height of 1.2-1.8 inches.
The foot contracts to produce movement and glands within it release a mucus that reduce friction with the underneath surface, reducing risks of damaging their skin. They have a single lung and a muscular foot that helps with locomotion.
Another important anatomy characteristic is a couple of tentacles in the head. The upper pair is used for vision, while the lower contains smell sensors.
Feeding
Usually the feeding activity of a Roman snail will be during the night, but you can find them during early morning hours or during rainy days. To scrap their food, the helix pomatia will use an organ inside its mouth with micro teeth called the radula.
These snails feed on a variety of plants, vegetables, flowers and leaves. However, they need to consume a considerable amount of calcium to preserve their shells as hard as possible and when they are not able to get it from their food, they will feed on some other materials which contain calcium, even soil or rocks.
Breeding
This snail, as most land gastropods is hermaphrodite; this means that they have both reproductive organs. However, they need to mate with other snails to fertilize their eggs. During the mating process, both snails will fertilize each other making them both able to release eggs.
The mating process can last for several hours. During that time, both will exchange “love darts”, a calcareus structure that is injected to each other.
Two to eight weeks after mating, they will lay 30 to 50 eggs in holes dug out in the ground with their foot. After 3 to 4 weeks of this, newborn snails will hatch their eggs and will appear out from the soil.
It is believed that this process can be repeated from 2 to 6 times in a year, depending on the climate conditions.
Maintenance care
Any suitably sized and escape-proof container can be used to house your snails, and aquarium tanks, large plastic food containers with holes bored for ventilation and even large glass jars have all been used to good effect. How big your container needs to be depends on the species being kept; as a general rule, a square foot (900 square cm) of floor-space will accommodate a pair of Helix snails.
The flooring needs to be able to maintain damp conditions, but not be prone to going boggy or sour and also be fairly easy and cheap to replace, since you’ll probably find you need to clean out the tank every few weeks. Garden soil or compost are amongst the best – but avoid soils that are sandy or gravelly as they are not ideal for the snails to move about on. You’ll also need to provide them with some places to hide during the day; old broken flowerpots or some cork bark are ideal for this job.
Lifespan — 5-7 years.
