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Sticker of Spanish snail
Bug card No. 4059 of 4,939

Spanish snail

Otala punctata
Eats: PlantsSnails, slugs and wormsGardens and meadowsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The Spanish snail is a land snail from the lands around the Mediterranean Sea. It breathes air and carries its round shell on its back. In southern Spain, people cook it in a spicy tomato sauce.

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
Spain, the Balearic Islands, France, Corsica, Sardinia and Malta, and now also in the United States
Top speed
about 0.03 km/h (0.02 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Wash your hands after touching it, like after touching any wild animal.
What does it eat?
Like its garden snail cousins, it eats plants.
For real!Photo of Spanish snail
Picture by Xvazquez. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

In southern Spain it is cooked in a dish called cabrillas.

2

It has reached the United States, where people worry it could harm farms and nature.

3

It belongs to the same family as the garden snail.

you asked

Most asked questions about Spanish snail

?Do people eat Spanish snails?

Yes. In southern Spain they are cooked in a spicy tomato sauce called cabrillas.

?Where does the Spanish snail live?

Around the western Mediterranean Sea, and now also in the United States.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Otala punctata
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Helicidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Helicidae
Lives on
Europe, North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Otala punctata (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 Xvazquez. 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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