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Sticker of Elegant helicellid
Bug card No. 1527 of 4,939

Elegant helicellid

Trochoidea elegans
Eats: PlantsSnails, slugs and wormsGardens and meadowsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The elegant helicellid is a small land snail from Europe. It breathes air, just like we do. It belongs to a snail family that is sometimes called the hairy snails.

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
Western and southern Europe, including Great Britain, France, Spain and Italy
Top speed
about 0.03 km/h (0.02 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Wash your hands after holding a snail, like after touching any wild animal.
What does it eat?
Like other land snails, it eats plants, scraping them with its rough tongue.
For real!Photo of Elegant helicellid
Picture by H. Zell. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It breathes air through a little lung inside its body.

2

It lives in several European countries and on islands like Great Britain and Sardinia.

3

Its family is known as the hairy snails, because some of its cousins have tiny hairs on their shells.

you asked

Most asked questions about Elegant helicellid

?Where does the elegant helicellid live?

In western and southern Europe, for example in Great Britain, France, Spain and Italy.

?Is the elegant helicellid dangerous?

No. It is a harmless little snail.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Trochoidea elegans
Named by
Gmelin, 1791
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Geomitridae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Geomitridae
Lives on
Europe

Where the facts come from

  1. Trochoidea elegans (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 H. Zell. 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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