mad_andy

Went out for a smoke this morning - slept like the dead last night, which is no bad thing - and spotted something rather interesting on the side of the recycling bin. Two brown lipped banded snails (Ceporaea nemoralis, a very very common species hereabouts and indeed, across most of Europe) with patternless bright yellow shells.

Now, for a while I've thought about catching a couple of these brightly coloured individuals and breeding them, for sale. After all, they're native, they're common, their colour and pattern is highly variable and people will pay for pretty snails to keep as pets. Fuck knows why. Anyway.

I has a spare box, and plenty of substrate, and food for the Africans - so why not?

I wandered over and picked them up. And to my surprise, not only were they both stunning individuals (patternless with clear, bright sunshine yellow shells) - but they were mating! I assume that they lay eggs this time of year to overwinter and hatch in the spring. Anyway, they got scooped up and installed in a spare box with lots of food and a nice deep moist coir substrate to lay eggs in. By the time the babies are big enough to either sell or choose for a breeding group it'll be spring, and the spares can simply be released in the garden.

I only grow plants that snails and slugs don't really like, because I won't use chemicals. And the variations in shell colour I've seen in this species over the years I've been living here has been astonishing, so after yesterday's nasty shock I decided to indulge myself.

I won't be damaging the environment, or introducing an invasive foreign species - and the individual animals either get protected and treated like kings or get to take their chances in the wild as they would anyway. Seems like a plan with no losers to me!

Anyway. Yes. I am bonkers, but here's hoping that the sunshine yellow snails are a good omen.