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Sticker of Cheese snail
Bug card No. 0857 of 4,939

Cheese snail

Helicodonta obvoluta
Name means: “its flat shell looks like a wheel of cheese”
Eats: PlantsSnails, slugs and wormsForests and woodsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The cheese snail has a flat, dark brown shell shaped like a little wheel of cheese. When it is young, its shell is covered in tiny hairs. It lives in European forests, close to old fallen tree trunks.

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
Large parts of Europe, in leafy and mixed forests
Length
1 to 1.5 cm (0.39 to 0.59 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 holding one, like after touching any wild animal.
What does it eat?
It finds its food on and around fallen tree trunks on the forest floor.
For real!Photo of Cheese snail
Picture by H. Zell. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Cheese snail about 1.5 cm long (0.59 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 2.5 grains of rice in a rowneeds 3 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Cheese 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 hairs on a young snail's shell are about 1 millimetre long. Older snails often lose them.

2

It is most active early in the morning and at night.

3

It lays 9 to 27 eggs in rotten wood and covers them with slime to keep them safe.

4

A fallen tree trunk is its whole world: it lays eggs, eats, hides and sleeps through winter there.

5

It usually lives about 2 years, and at most 3.

you asked

Most asked questions about Cheese snail

?Why is it called the cheese snail?

Because its flat, round shell looks like a wheel of cheese.

?Where does the cheese snail live?

In forests in large parts of Europe, from Spain to Poland and Italy, near fallen tree trunks.

?How big is the cheese snail?

Its shell is about 1 to 1.5 centimetres wide.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Helicodonta obvoluta
Named by
O. F. Müller, 1774
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Helicodontidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Helicodontidae
Lives on
Europe

Where the facts come from

  1. Helicodonta obvoluta (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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Honey jarfor grown-ups