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Sticker of Quimper snail
Bug card No. 3466 of 4,939

Quimper snail

Elona quimperiana
Name means: “from Quimper, a town in Brittany in France”
Eats: Fungus and mouldSnails, slugs and wormsForests and woodsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The Quimper snail carries a flat, round shell, a bit like a coiled rope. The shell is the colour of horn, with a few white stripes and a white lip at the opening. It lives only in a few damp forests in France and Spain.

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
Only in Brittany in north-west France and in northern Spain, in damp leafy forests
Length
2 to 3 cm (0.79 to 1.2 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 eats the fine threads of fungus that grow on old, rotting tree stumps, mostly oak. Now and then it also eats droppings or dead animals.
For real!Photo of Quimper snail
Picture by Jymm. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Quimper snail about 3 cm long (1.2 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 5 grains of rice in a rowneeds 2 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Quimper snail compared to YOU?

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

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its shell has five or six turns, and the top is slightly sunken in.

2

Like other land snails, every Quimper snail is both a mum and a dad at the same time.

3

It is about two years old before it can have babies.

4

It lays its eggs underground, in tiny natural tunnels in the soil.

5

It is on a special European list of animals that must be protected.

you asked

Most asked questions about Quimper snail

?Where does the Quimper snail live?

Only in damp leafy forests in Brittany in France and in northern Spain.

?What does the Quimper snail eat?

Mostly the fine threads of fungus on rotting tree stumps.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Elona quimperiana
Named by
Férussac, 1821
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Elonidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Elonidae
Lives on
Europe
Also known as
Escargot de Quimper

Where the facts come from

  1. Escargot de Quimper (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 Jymm. Public domain, 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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