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Sticker of Quick gloss snail
Bug card No. 3465 of 4,939

Quick gloss snail

Zonitoides arboreus
Eats: PlantsSnails, slugs and wormsForests and woodsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The quick gloss snail is a tiny land snail with a flat, shiny shell no wider than a grown-up's fingernail. It has dark grey feelers and little black eyes. It lives in damp woods, under leaves and in the soil.

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
North America, and brought by people to Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other places
Length
5 to 6 mm (0.2 to 0.24 in)
the width of the shell
Top speed
about 0.01 km/h (0.01 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?
It scrapes up plant food with its tongue, which is covered in rows of tiny teeth. In greenhouses it can nibble on the plants.
For real!Photo of Quick gloss snail
Picture by Scott Bauer, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org. CC BY 3.0 us, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Quick gloss snail about 6 mm long (0.24 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailneeds 6 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Quick gloss snail compared to YOU?

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

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The opening of its shell is wide and shaped like a crescent moon.

2

It needs damp air to breathe, so it cannot cross dry lands, big lakes or frozen water to move to new places.

3

People carried it by accident to many countries, where it often lives in warm greenhouses and can be a pest.

4

Each row of teeth on its tongue has one middle tooth and many smaller teeth on the sides.

5

Every quick gloss snail is both a mum and a dad at the same time, like many land snails.

you asked

Most asked questions about Quick gloss snail

?How big is the quick gloss snail?

Its shell is only about 5 to 6 millimetres wide, smaller than a fingernail.

?Where does the quick gloss snail live?

It comes from North America, where it lives in damp woods. People have also carried it to greenhouses in many other countries.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Zonitoides arboreus
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Gastrodontidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Gastrodontidae
Lives on
North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Zonitoides arboreus (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 Scott Bauer, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org. CC BY 3.0 us, 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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