Heath snail

Helicella itala

Eats: Plants Snails, slugs and wormsDeserts and dry placesNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The heath snail has a flat, round shell that is white or pale yellow-brown. Often it has dark brown stripes winding around it. It loves sunny, dry places like sand dunes and roadsides.

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 Central Europe, from Britain and Spain to Poland, on dry, open ground

Length

1.2 to 2 cm (0.47 to 0.79 in)

the width of the shell

Top speed

about 0.02 km/h (0.01 mph)

On foot, estimate

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

Harmless. Wash your hands after touching any snail.

What does it eat?

Like most land snails, it scrapes up bits of plants with its rough tongue.

Photo of Heath snail — Picture by H. Zell. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

as long as 3 grains of rice in a rowneeds 3 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Heath snail compared to YOU?

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

How fast is it?

Heath snail about 0.02 km/h (0.01 mph)

A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)

A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)

A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

Its eggs are only about one and a half millimetres wide.

It lives on sunny railway banks, sand dunes, rocks and short grass.

In the Alps and Pyrenees it can live up to 2000 metres high.

The middle of its shell has a wide open hole underneath.

you asked

Most asked questions about Heath snail

?Where does the heath snail live?

In western and central Europe, in dry, sunny places like dunes and roadsides.

?How big is the heath snail?

Its shell is about 12 to 20 millimetres wide.

For bug experts

Scientific name: Helicella itala
Named by: Linnaeus, 1758
Group: Snails, slugs and worms
Family: Geomitridae
Classification: Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Geomitridae
Lives on: Europe

Where the facts come from

Helicella itala (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
Picture by H. Zell. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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