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Sticker of White garden snail
Bug card No. 1454 of 1,500

White garden snail

Theba pisana
Eats: PlantsSnails, slugs and wormsGardens and meadowsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The white garden snail has a creamy white or yellow shell, often with thin brown stripes going round and round. It loves sunny, sandy places near the sea. On hot days you can see lots of them stuck to grass stems and fence posts, waiting for cooler weather.

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
Around the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic coasts, and now also in parts of America, Africa, Asia and Australia
Length
1.2 to 2.5 cm (0.47 to 0.98 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 to people. Farmers do not like it, because it can eat their crops.
What does it eat?
It eats many kinds of plants, from wild plants to crops like grapes, oranges, beans and grain.
For real!Photo of White garden snail
Picture by tato grasso. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

White garden snail about 2.5 cm long (0.98 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 4 grains of rice in a rowneeds 2 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is White garden snail compared to YOU?

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

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

In hot weather it seals itself up and takes a long summer nap, even right in the sunshine.

2

Its body is light yellow with dark stripes running up to its very long feelers.

3

Young snails have a sharp edge on their shell, but grown-ups lose it.

4

It cannot survive hard winter frosts.

5

Many of them are found along roadsides, and fewer the further you go from the road.

you asked

Most asked questions about White garden snail

?Can you eat the white garden snail?

Yes, it is an edible kind of snail.

?What does the white garden snail eat?

Many different plants, including crops like citrus fruits, grapevines, beans and grain.

?How big is the white garden snail?

Its shell is about 12 to 25 millimetres wide.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Theba pisana
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Helicidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Helicidae
Lives on
Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Sand hill snail, White Italian snail, Mediterranean snail, Mediterranean coastal snail

Where the facts come from

  1. Theba pisana (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 tato grasso. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same 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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