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Sticker of Otway black snail
Bug card No. 3192 of 4,939

Otway black snail

Victaphanta compacta
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSnails, slugs and wormsForests and woodsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The Otway black snail is a dark, shiny snail that lives only in one cool, wet forest in Australia. Its body is grey-blue to black, and its round shell is dark brown to black. It is not a leaf-eater like garden snails: it is a hunter.

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 the Otway Ranges in Victoria, Australia, in cool rainforest
Length
2.8 cm (1.1 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. It is a rare snail, so if you are lucky enough to see one, just look.
What does it eat?
It hunts other snails, slugs, earthworms and soft insect larvae. It never eats other snails of its own kind.
For real!Photo of Otway black snail
Picture by Lorraine Phelan. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Otway black snail about 2.8 cm long (1.1 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 Otway black 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 is thin, light and a little bendy, a bit like soft plastic.

2

It has no jaw. Instead its rough tongue, called a radula, has long, sharp teeth that point backwards and hold on to its prey.

3

It comes out mostly at night to hunt.

4

Its close cousins have an orange frill around the foot and orange slime, but the Otway black snail has neither.

5

Its shell sits towards the tail end of its body, not in the middle.

you asked

Most asked questions about Otway black snail

?What does the Otway black snail eat?

Other snails, slugs, earthworms and soft insect larvae. It is a meat-eating snail.

?How big is the Otway black snail?

Its shell is up to about 2.8 centimetres wide.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Victaphanta compacta
Named by
Cox & Hedley, 1912
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Rhytididae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Rhytididae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Victaphanta compacta (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 Lorraine Phelan. CC BY 4.0, 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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Honey jarfor grown-ups