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Sticker of Mountain banded snail
Bug card No. 2922 of 4,939

Mountain banded snail

Macularia sylvatica
Eats: PlantsSnails, slugs and wormsForests and woodsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The mountain banded snail is a land snail from the western Alps. Its shell has dark stripes that look broken into dashes. It can live high up in the mountains, where it is cold and wet.

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
The western Alps in Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and Liechtenstein
Top speed
about 0.03 km/h (0.02 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Wash your hands after holding one, like after touching any wild animal.
What does it eat?
Like other land snails, it eats plants.
For real!Photo of Mountain banded snail
Picture by Gargominy O.. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It has been found from 265 metres up to 2,560 metres high in the mountains.

2

It looks like the grove snail, but its shell is smaller and less colourful.

3

It lives in woods, dunes and grassland, but copes with colder and wetter places than the grove snail.

4

Its shell has a blunt, rounded tip.

you asked

Most asked questions about Mountain banded snail

?Where does the mountain banded snail live?

In the western Alps, in Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and Liechtenstein.

?How is it different from the grove snail?

Its shell is smaller and less colourful, and its stripes look broken.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Macularia sylvatica
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Helicidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Helicidae
Lives on
Europe

Where the facts come from

  1. Macularia sylvatica (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 Gargominy O.. 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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