On a rainy day during this quite wet extended monsoon, while observing the plants in my balcony garden I noticed that the Tinospora leaves (popularly known as amruthavalli or giloy) were extensively eaten around one of the pots.
I was curious and started looking around and found a few very small snails – less than half a centimeter long in the soil! When I looked closely, there were quite a few hiding below leaves and crevices. I did some research and found that these are Horntail snails (Macrochlymus indica) and are considered pests.
The first few I saw were very small and had a brilliant golden glow to the shell!
The rear of the snail has this protrusion that looks like a horn, hence it is called a Horntail Snail
The older ones have duller looking shells.
While looking around I also noticed a few conical shells. Turns out there is another species of snail in the garden!
Not sure about the identification of the second species of snail with a conical shell!
Isn’t it amazing that we can see two species of snails in a pot two floors up in the middle of a concrete jungle!
A little bit more information about land snails I gathered. Land snails constitute about six per cent of the total species on Earth. A large part of molluscan fauna in many tropical regions of the world is still poorly known. They form an important component of the forest ecosystem by recycling nutrients and are the prey base for a number of small mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and other invertebrates, including carnivorous snails.
The shell of a snail has it’s purpose – retain moisture, protection from predator and weather. While water snails and sea snails have the buoyancy to lighten the load, the land snails have to carry the full weight of the shell while moving around. For this reason the land snails are typically limited in size.
References
1. https://www.welcomewildlife.com/all-about-land-snails/
2. Land snails (Mollusca: Gastropoda) of India: status, threats and conservation strategies by Sandeep Sen, G. Ravikanth & N.A. Aravind
3. https://jlrexplore.com/explore/focus/terrestrial-snails-of-karnataka
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