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Sticker of Reddish aegopinella
Bug card No. 3611 of 4,939

Reddish aegopinella

Retinella nitidula
Eats: A bit of everythingSnails, slugs and wormsForests and woodsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The reddish aegopinella is a small land snail with a shiny, amber-red shell. Its body is bluish grey, with dark blue-black feelers on top. It likes damp places in forests.

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
Northwestern Europe, mostly in damp forests
Length
8 mm (0.31 in)
the width of the shell
Top speed
about 0.02 km/h (0.01 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Wash your hands after touching snails, like after touching any wild animal.
What does it eat?
Like other glass snails, it eats rotting leaves and other bits it finds on the damp forest floor.
For real!Photo of Reddish aegopinella
Picture by Michal Maลˆas. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Reddish aegopinella about 8 mm long (0.31 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 3 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Reddish aegopinella 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 about 8 millimetres wide and 6 millimetres tall.

2

Its shell has very fine lines that make a delicate net pattern.

3

Its shell is sometimes almost white, and it is milky white around the middle underneath.

4

It looks almost the same as a cousin snail, but the two live in different parts of Europe.

5

It has also been brought to Vancouver in Canada.

you asked

Most asked questions about Reddish aegopinella

?How big is the reddish aegopinella?

Its shell is about 8 millimetres wide, smaller than a fingernail.

?Where does the reddish aegopinella live?

In northwestern Europe, mostly in damp forests, but also in hedges, among rocks and near springs.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Retinella nitidula
Named by
Draparnaud, 1805
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Gastrodontidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Gastrodontidae
Lives on
Europe, North America
Also known as
Waxy glass snail

Where the facts come from

  1. Aegopinella nitidula (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 Michal Maลˆas. 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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