Garden Snails

Brown-lipped Garden Snail

As I have been looking around the butterfly garden at Allens Pond Sanctuary, on a number of the plants that have been snails.  Researching what species are the snails, I come to find out that two varieties of the garden snails are an invasive species in the United States, actually have come from Europe and they have established themselves.  One of the snails is the Grove Snail or Brown Lipped Snail (Cepaea nemoralis) and the other variety is the White Lipped Snail (Cepaea hortensis).  Both snails a very similar in appearance, except for the band at the lip of the shell, which gives them their name.
The snails are air- breathing, terrestrial gastropod mollusk.  It is a hermaphrodite and does have to mate in order to produce fertile eggs.  The diet consists of grass and a low low-lying plans, including nettles.
The white-lipped snails are slightly smaller than the brown-lipped snails.  Both of them have considerable variability in shell color and banding.  The most distinguishing feature between the two types of snails is the color of the lip at the aperture of the show in the adults.  Except for rare instances, the white- lipped snail band is white and the brown-lipped snails band is brown.

White-lipped Garden Snail

White-lipped Garden Snail - back side view

White-lipped Garden Snail

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