Appearance
The adult bears a hard, thin calcareous shell 25–40 mm in diameter and 25–35 mm high, with four or five whorls. The shell is variable in coloring and shade of color, but generally it has a reticulated pattern of dark brown, brownish-golden, or chestnut with yellow stripes, flecks, or streaks. The aperture is large and characteristically oblique, its margin in adults is whitish and reflected.The body is soft and slimy, brownish-grey, and the animal retracts itself entirely into the shell when inactive or threatened. When injured or badly irritated the animal produces a defensive froth of mucus that might repel some enemies or overwhelm aggressive small ants or the like.
It has no operculum; during dry or cold weather it seals the aperture of the shell with a thin membrane of dried mucus; the term for such a membrane is "epiphragm". The epiphragm helps the snail retain moisture and protects it from small predators such as some ants.
Distribution
"Cornu aspersum" is native to the Mediterranean region and Western Europe, from northwest Africa and Iberia, eastwards to Asia Minor, and northwards to the British Isles.
Reproduction
Like other Pulmonata, the individuals of the species "Cornu aspersum" are hermaphrodites, producing both male and female gametes. Reproduction is usually sexual, although self-fertilisation sometimes occurs. During a mating session of several hours, two snails exchange sperm. "Cornu aspersum" is one of the species that uses love darts during mating.About two weeks after fertilisation, the snail lays a batch of about 80 spherical pearly-white eggs into crevices in the topsoil, or sheltered under stones or the like. In a year it may lay approximately six batches of eggs. The size of the egg is 4 mm.
The young snails take one to two years to reach maturity. In some regions snail farms produce these snails commercially.The snail secretes thixotropic adhesive mucus that permits locomotion by rhythmic waves of contraction passing forward within its muscular "foot".
Starting from the rear, the contraction of the longitudinal muscle fibres above a small area of the film of mucus causes shear that liquefies the mucus, permitting the tip of the tail to move forward.
The contracted muscle relaxes while its immediately anteriad transverse band of longitudinal fibres contract in their turn, repeating the process, which continues forward until it reaches the head.
At that point the whole animal has moved forward by the length of the contraction of one of the bands of contraction. However, depending on the length of the animal, several bands of contraction can be in progress simultaneously, so that the resultant speed amounts to the speed imparted by a single wave, multiplied by the number of individual waves passing along simultaneously.
Food
"Cornu aspersum" is a primarily a herbivore with a wide range of host plants. It feeds on numerous types of fruit trees, vegetable crops, rose bushes, garden flowers, and cereals.It also is an omnivorous scavenger that feeds on rotting plant material and on occasion will scavenge animal matter, such as crushed snails and worms. In turn it is a food source for many other animals, including small mammals, many bird species, lizards, frogs, centipedes, predatory insects such as glowworms in the family Lampyridae, and predatory terrestrial snails.
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