My dear Tiger snails Ewert & Gaius!

[etana]

Here's a photo update of my two Tigers (Achatina achatina)! 


Ewert on the left, baby Gaius on the right, both enjoying a pumpkin seed on top of a big piece of sweet potato. Ewert took a while to get used to Gaius, he in fact froze when he first saw the little guy a couple weeks ago, but these days they're good friends. They often sleep together, and Gaius responds to Ewert's eye stalk pat very fast when he's in his shell and Ewert wants him out.   I'm so happy, because Ewert seemed so lonely!


This is also an update on Ewert's shell. As some of you may remember he had quite some growth problems for a long time. He's grown very handsomely since he got the bad growth sorted out, and I hope that a new whorl of shell this pretty will cover up the bad part! 

Then for some friendly affection:

Gaius stroked Ewert's eye stalks with both his own eye stalks and his tiny feeler tentacles for quite a while. Ewert didn't mind at all. A shame they're both still so young and will take ages to mature, I do want little Gaius-Ewerts!  

[Jade]

Aww they're lovely! It's nice to see that they have this friendship and interaction

[mangoandlemon]

Wonderful!

[Zorst]

Great photos and loved the last one especially. So glad to see that they are great friends.

Zorst

[cliath]

They're beautiful! It looks like Ewert is teaching Gaius what to eat and how to eat it in the first two photos.

[muddydragon]

dawwwwwwww gaius' face in the first photo! "my pumpkin seed, i love my pumpkin seed"

[etana]

Thank you so much, all!

I shouldn't have favourites, but these guys truly make my heart melt with their teddy-bear-like faces and gorgeous skins and shells. Plus now that Ewert has a real friend (and not just the lovesick teen Tauno, whose kisses make Ewert run for escape) there are new, soft sides of him to be seen. Like, I'd never seen him pat a retracted snail on the shell before Gaius came along.

The only "bad" thing really is that these guys do love to sleep in their burrow, so I don't see much of them! But oh well.

[Zorst]

I love this line the image it brings to mind does make me laugh.

"Ewert has a real friend (and not just the lovesick teen Tauno, whose kisses make Ewert run for escape)".

Its great that Ewert finally has his own snaily friend and real cute that they share a burrow.

Zorst

[etana]

Lol Zorst, it's true, just a couple nights ago I saw it happen again - Tauno was kissing Ewert's tail and shell, and Ewert ran off really fast. I kinda feel bad for both of them, Ewert for being harassed and Tauno for not finding love despite his many efforts! I'll talk more about that in the funny thread though!

I agree that the burrow sharing is very cute.

[spiidi]

wow very fine

[Selena]

a bit late respond... but i have to write: I really love baby Gaius is holding the seed whilst he's eating it..(picture 1) i never saw a snail doing that so clearly with his 'arms' before. Its so cute when they doing that!! is it commonly for them to hold their food that way?

If so: i'm immediately going to purchage some tigersnails and feed them the hole day while i'm staring at them and taking pictures!!   

[etana]

Selena, it's slightly hard to say as my snails are such night owls (night snails?), but as far as I have seen they don't hold their food like that more often than anyone else does. It seems to happen the most when they get a piece of food they really really like and don't want to share, like for example Halonen did it when I gave her a small piece of bell pepper and Mauno wanted it too. I agree that it IS very cute, I wish they did it more, and that I'd get more pics of it!

Tiger snails are very lovely though, I can totally recommend you get some anyway. They need a little bit more heat and space than fulica, and lots of soil/coir to burrow in, but they sometimes clean up the tank and they have the best facial expressions, both happy and grumpy.

[Selena]

yeah, i see it with my snails from time to time, but they never used their site wings that much baby gaius does on that picture it looks llike he have amost real arms.

I actually waiting with west african species, because i haven't much experience and untill i get more difficult species i want to know for sure i at least want to understand completely what east african species needs. I do have much snails (to begin with), but that's the way i've planned it. No restriction for the amount of east. a species, but i do have that for w african species.
anyway: if i have enough knowledge, i have enough snails as well, so i don;t know if its possible to keep tigersnails

[etana]

Thinking of it, I may not have seen it to that extent with anyone else, either. Baby Gaius is a very special and smart little fellow!   

I am reminded of one time when two Cepaea were kissing and the fatter one held the smaller one sort of like that. I have a picture, ummm...yes, here it is.


Yes, that's close, and it's so romantic!
(Yes they were a white lipped and black lipped snail and they mated, so a lot of doubts arised about whether their lip colours are right - there are some possible mutations in the nemoralis that cause a white lip. But I digress)

Also that's fair enough about your plan about the west and east African species, but my recommendation remains.