You stood out greatly...

[Cashell]

Ahh, what a nice view.


Anyway, I went down to a conservation area by a lake this weekend and since it was lightly raining, there were snails everywhere within the bushes and some even on the paved trails! Majority of them were brown-lipped snails. They were all pretty much the same multi-banded morph with the only difference being that some were rose tinged and others were yellow or brown tinged. Due to this, I was getting the impression that I wasn't going to see any new species or at least a morph of brown lips I've never seen before, until I found a snail with a "ghost-like" pattern on it that stood out significantly amongst the thousands of other brown lips! I took it home and now here it is below.











Now for the question: what morph is this? Is it actually "sun bleached" by any chance or is this even a cepaea nemoralis? I've encountered many morphs of brown-lipped snails before, but not this one! If any of you are knowledgeable about the morphs of cepaea nemoralis/ hortensis, please help me out with this.

[crucify]

I have too many (probably hundreds) c. nemoralis and the variation on their shells is amazing, but I've never seen any as faint as that. My only faint-shelled snails are those with clear damage to the surface of their shell.

I did some picking through my snail tank and found plenty of thick stripes, thin stripes, black/brown stripes and plain yellow shells, but nothing with that ghost pattern. I wonder what the parents looked like.

[Dumbledore]

Partial shell albinism maybe?

[Cashell]

Sept 23, 2013 22:20:05 GMT crucify said:

I have too many (probably hundreds) c. nemoralis and the variation on their shells is amazing, but I've never seen any as faint as that. My only faint-shelled snails are those with clear damage to the surface of their shell.

I did some picking through my snail tank and found plenty of thick stripes, thin stripes, black/brown stripes and plain yellow shells, but nothing with that ghost pattern. I wonder what the parents looked like.

Yeah, I think this morphg might be rare - and wow! You that own that much nemoralises? I thought I was bad for having around 20.

Sept 26, 2013 11:55:53 GMT Dumbledore said:

Partial shell albinism maybe?

If I ever find out that this is an albino, I'm so going to breed it!!

[Dumbledore]

It does look kinda albino, but not totally... like it had an albino parent and a snail from two albino parents who wasn't albino. And if you breed it, then I am so going to track you down and permanently borrow several babies.

[Cashell]

Lol before I decide to breed, I'd first have to figure out whether this morph is: recessive, heterozygous, co-dominant or dominant, so I can know what other morph would best suit it and what I can expect in my clutch.

BTW- I admittedly don't know about snail genetics that much, so I'd have to have a more experienced breeder explain to me or someone who at least knows where to find a good guide, since I've only started snail breeding in 2013.

[Dumbledore]

O.O

Wow.

Wow.

WOW.

[muddydragon]

i would strongly suspect there are several genes at play so it may not be as simple as recessive, co-dominant or dominant....

have a look on google scholar or web of knowledge there's quite a few articles on cepaea genetics

[Cashell]

Sept 28, 2013 21:19:47 GMT Dumbledore said:

O.O

Wow.

Wow.

WOW.

Yeah, I know... Breeding for a certain morph and learning the genetics beind it can be insane!

Sept 29, 2013 8:40:02 GMT muddydragon said:

i would strongly suspect there are several genes at play so it may not be as simple as recessive, heterozygous, co-dominant or dominant....

have a look on google scholar or web of knowledge there's quite a few articles on cepaea genetics

......... Ok, I guess I'll look around. Thanks. Heh heh.

So far I've found this site: molluscs.at/gastropoda/terrestrial.html?/gastropoda/terrestrial/banded_snails.html