White Italian snail

Appearance

The shell background color is a creamy white. Different individuals may have shells with varying degrees of pale to dark brown markings. The markings, when present, may be in the form of uninterrupted spiral bands, spiral dotted lines, or small radial smudges.

The shell can be found in various colour variants, but is basically yellow or white with dark color bands or spots and often a dark bluish grey apex. The shells of juveniles are sharply keeled, however the keel is not present on the final adult whorl. The aperture often has a lip that is light reddish on the inside, and the lip margin is only reflected at columellar side. The umbilicus is narrow and half covered by the reflected columellar margin. The apex has a characteristic size in the eastern Mediterranean when compared with other species, where there are no other "Theba" species. The umbilicus is also rarely seen in other species. Juveniles of "Eobania vermiculata" have a considerably larger apex.

The width of the shell is 12–25 mm, but in Greece the adult shells are usually below 15 mm in width. The height of the shell is 9–20 mm. The visible soft parts are very light yellowish with dark colour bands running from the sides to the upper tentacles; the tentacles are very long. This snail is sometimes confused with "Cernuella virgata", a species with a much smaller and less inflated shell.

Distribution

The species is native to the Mediterranean region. The type locality is Italy. The species has been introduced to numerous other areas.

Habitat

"Theba pisana" usually lives in coastlands, in or near sandy habitats. In hot climates it aestivates often directly exposed to the sun, attached to grasses, shrubs or succulent plants, fence posts, tall weeds, and so on. It is common near beaches. In dunes it can live on nearly bare sand that is poorly fixed in place by grasses. In colder regions the snails do not estivate, but they do climb on plants in dry weather. This snail does not survive serious winter frosts.