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Sticker of Pellucid glass-snail
Bug card No. 3292 of 4,939

Pellucid glass-snail

Vitrina pellucida
Eats: Leftovers and dead thingsSnails, slugs and wormsGardens and meadowsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The pellucid glass-snail is a tiny snail with a see-through, greenish shell that looks like a little glass bead. Its soft grey body is much too big for its shell. It cannot squeeze all the way inside, so it is called a half-slug.

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 Central Europe, in damp, shady meadows, woods and wasteland
Length
6 mm (0.24 in)
the width of the shell
Top speed
about 0.01 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 munches dead leaves and tiny mossy plants called liverworts. It also eats dead earthworms and even horse poo.
For real!Photo of Pellucid glass-snail
Picture by H. Zell. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Pellucid glass-snail about 6 mm long (0.24 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 6 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Pellucid glass-snail 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 only about 6 millimetres wide, smaller than a pea.

2

Its head and feelers are darker than the rest of its pale grey body.

3

People usually do not notice it until late in autumn.

4

Hedgehogs like to eat it.

5

It lays its eggs in small heaps, each egg wrapped in a thin skin.

you asked

Most asked questions about Pellucid glass-snail

?What does the pellucid glass-snail eat?

Dead leaves, tiny mossy plants, dead earthworms and horse poo. It helps clean up the ground.

?Can the glass-snail hide in its shell?

Not completely. Its body is too big for its shell, so part of it always stays outside.

?How big is the pellucid glass-snail?

Its shell is about 6 millimetres wide and 3.5 millimetres high.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Vitrina pellucida
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Vitrinidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Vitrinidae
Lives on
Europe

Where the facts come from

  1. Vitrina pellucida (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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