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Sticker of Grove snail
Bug card No. 0700 of 1,500

Grove snail

Cepaea nemoralis
Eats: PlantsSnails, slugs and wormsGardens and meadowsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The grove snail is one of the most common big snails in Europe. Its shell can be yellow, pink or brown, with up to five dark stripes. Almost every grown-up grove snail has a dark brown edge around the opening of its shell, like lipstick.

Fun fact: this one is not an insect at all, it has no legs! But kids find it on every bug hunt, so it lives in Bug Wiki too.
Lives in
Western and Northern Europe, now spreading east and also living in North America
Length
1.8 to 2.5 cm (0.71 to 0.98 in)
the width of the shell
Top speed
about 0.03 km/h (0.02 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Wash your hands after holding one, like after touching any wild animal.
What does it eat?
It munches on plants. In some places in Canada it even nibbles grapevines.
For real!Photo of Grove snail
Picture by Cepaea_nemoralis_(Mad_Max).jpg : Mad Max derivative work: Papa Lima Whiskey 2. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Grove snail about 2.5 cm long (0.98 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 4 grains of rice in a rowneeds 2 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Grove snail compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

No two shells are quite the same. Some have no stripes at all, others have one, two, three, four or five.

2

Snails in shady woods often have darker shells, while snails in sunny places have paler ones that do not get so hot.

3

Song thrushes learn to look for the most common shell colour, so snails with rare colours are more likely to stay safe.

4

Scientists and families take part in projects where they count the stripes and colours of grove snails.

5

It has spread along the Baltic Sea coast and now lives in Estonia too.

you asked

Most asked questions about Grove snail

?How can you tell a grove snail from a white-lipped snail?

Look at the edge of the shell opening. The grove snail usually has a dark brown lip, its cousin has a white one.

?How big is a grove snail?

Its shell is about 18 to 25 millimetres wide.

?Why do grove snails have different colours?

Different colours help in different places, and birds have a harder time finding the rare ones.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Cepaea nemoralis
Named by
Linnaeus, 1758
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Helicidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Helicidae
Lives on
Europe, North America
Also known as
Brown-lipped snail, Lemon snail

Where the facts come from

  1. Cepaea nemoralis (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Cepaea_nemoralis_(Mad_Max).jpg : Mad Max derivative work: Papa Lima Whiskey 2. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

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