White-lipped snail (Capaea hortensis, O. F. Muller, 1774)
Family: Helicidae,
The shell is around 2.5cm across (fully matured). Shell colours and band markings can vary considerably. The shell of the white-lipped snail is mainly yellowish in colour with brown banding with a white lip. This helps to distinguish it from the Grove snail having a brown lip; rarely the Grove Snail (brown-lipped) can have a white lip shell and vice versa.
The White-lipped snail is also called the Garden banded snail. It is an air-breathing land snail.
A widespread species, over all of the UK and much of Europe, especially Central and Western Europe. Also found closer to the Artic regions of Northern Europe, than its close relative, the Grove Snail.
Habitat: Preferring warm damp conditions in Woodlands, Hedgerows, dunes and grasslands, tolerating wetter and colder conditions more so, than the Grove snail. Can be found on wild plants such as nettles, hogweed and ragwort.
Because all land snails are hermaphrodites, they have both male and female reproductive organs. By obtaining scent signals from the air, they are able to find a prospective partner.
Mating season begins in the Spring, through until Autumn.
White-lipped snails have both male and female reproductive organs, so are able to self-fertilise; but in the beginning they need to find a mate for this to materialise. The snails will enter a “love dance” this can last for up to an hour or more. Both partners attempt to manoeuvre into an advantageable position, which will enable the successful partner to release a “love-dart,” (A sharp stylet, made up of calcium carbonate, containing sperm coated in a mucus of chemicals), piercing the skin on impact and entering the other partners body fluids. The snails will then proceed to mate by engaging and entwine with each other, within a mucus of chemicals produced from the effects of the “love-dart”.
After mating has taken place, the snails will go their separate ways and lay their eggs, buried in soil.
Each clutch usually has over a hundred eggs, taking around a month to hatch. Juvenile snails will have softer shells until they harden with age.