Albino GALS Lifespan

[pearthesnail]

I've read many times that normal bodied A Fulicas can live to be up to 10 years old but I've never seen or heard of any Albino Fulicas (like jades and jadatzis) living past 5 years- has anyone had an albino GAL that's lived for longer than 5 years?

I've had a few albino baby snails die off within a year from genetic problems but Pear (my albino jade) aged and died at 5 years old with no health problems - is it just all genetic luck with albinos?

[muddydragon]

Fenrir, Loki and Freyr hatched april 2011 and died january 2017 so lasted a little over 5 years, but they did have black eye spots

Sleipnir, Reingold, Yggdresil, Jormungandr and Heimdall (some of their offspring) were all 5 this january and are still going strong (i hope they still have many years left in them! - you've got me worried now, time has flown lately and i did not realise they were that old already until i did some adding!)

On the other hand Freyja and Thor (siblings of Fenrir, Loki and Freyr), Watson and Nessus (parents of Freyja, Thor, Fenrir, Loki and Freyja) all did not last over 5 years.

Then again i've not had many of my non-albino or black eyed white snails last longer than 5 years, 2 silvers, a leucistic and a dark skinned sut all lasted only a couple of years (Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter) - all from the same seller but different parentage.

The smaller snails pleurontes and hadras seem the longest lived in general

[pearthesnail]

Your snailies sound lovely I'm sure you have nothing to worry about

Are any of them looking old? When Pear reached 5 years, she didon't suffer with any deep retraction or anything like that but she could only manage soft foods and her shell had aged:

Her shell in her prime:






Her shell when she was old (a few days before she passed away):

[muddydragon]

Yes they look older, it's natural for the shell to end up looking aged, they get that worn look, many of my albinos "yellowed" aswell. quite often you get that gnarly extra growth after the should have finished too.

as they get older they do seem to favour softer and sweeter foods (perhaps a change in nutritional requirements aswell as the radula becoming less strong perhaps?)

I know for a fact that Sleipnir's radula is working just fin for the fact he took off some skin the other day when rasping at me (see the little red mark on my thumb in the second picture) then he starte pulling out hairs... he's a cheeky fella!

This is sleipnir ~2 years old

This is him yesterday

[muddydragon]

i should have clarified i'm talking about Archachatina marginata suturalis here (which is now obvious ).

I've not had any jade Achatina fulica, i've had some Achatina fulica jadatzi but they only lived 4 years. Jadatzi are not strong snails however, they also looked aged as they got older.

every species i've had looks older as it ages it's just one of those things

[pearthesnail]

I wonder why albino skinned snails seem to 'yellow' as they get older? Yes I'm assuming they start to lose teeth on the radula and they stop regenerating new teeth so will only be able to manage soft foods - bless!

Sleipnir is such a beautiful snaily! I cant belive he was pulling out hairs the cheeky little man!

Shamby (my young Jadatzi) has a shell that already looks old (due to genetics) bless him:


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However my other Jadatzi who is the same age, Anubis has a healthy shell. Anubis and Shamby aren't related:


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[muddydragon]

i'm just guessing here but apparently in one of the albino axolotl strains they yellow with age due to the accumulation of riboflavins from their diet so i wouldn't be surprised if the same, or something similar, was happening with our albinos.

I genuinely believe all margie suts have an extra dose of naughty behaviour in their genes - based on my various suts, either that or i've ended up breeding cheekiness!

Sadly jadatzi do seem prone to growth problems, still lovely little snails though i like how inquisitve shambly looks in that picture