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The
Poweshiek Skipper Project
Terrestrial Snails |
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Fossaria parva Pigmy Fossaria |
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This is not a terrestrial snail. It is an aquatic snail that is
amphibious. The specimens that I found were in one case a few inches
from the water on a wet leaf. Another time I found them on a
wet brick that was a an inch or two above the water line of an
intermittent stream that had dried out. Most land snails in Iowa belong to the order Stylommatophora. This snail does not. In the Stylommatophera the eyes are at the tips of the first pair of tentacles. In this snail, although you cannot see it in the photos, the eyes are at the base of the tentacles. |
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Typical land snails will poke their heads out from under their shells when
they crawl along a surface. These snails don't, at least when on
land. They keep their shells mostly above their bodies so that the
foot and the head are not really visible.
There are probably a number of aquatic snails in Iowa that can occasionally be found in terrestrial habitats, including some of the Physia species. There also seem to be some snails in the Stylommatophera group that are more aquatic than terrestrial, but they are traditionally called land snails. |
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