Miniature awlsnail
Subulina octona
The miniature awlsnail is a small land snail with a long, thin, pointy shell, like a tiny awl or drill. It comes from the warm Caribbean. It breathes air and lives on land, not in water.
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
Cuba, the Caribbean and Venezuela, and now in many warm places and greenhouses around the world
Can it hurt you?
Dangerous: look, do not touch
It can carry tiny worms, like the rat lungworm, that can make people sick. Look, but do not touch it or put it in your mouth, tell a grown-up, and always wash your hands after gardening.
What does it eat?
Like many small land snails, it eats rotting plant bits and soft plants.
How fast is it?
Miniature awlsnail about 0.03 km/h (0.02 mph)
A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It is a cousin of the giant African land snail, but much smaller.
2
People have carried it to Africa, Asia and other places by accident.
3
In Britain and the Czech Republic it lives only in heated greenhouses.
you asked
Most asked questions about Miniature awlsnail
?Where does the miniature awlsnail live?
It comes from the Caribbean and Venezuela, and now lives in many warm places and greenhouses.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Subulina octona
- Group
- Snails, slugs and worms
- Family
- Achatinidae
- Classification
- Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Achatinidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Subulina octona (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Wibowo Djatmiko ( Wie146 ). 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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