Monadenia fidelis - more than 14 of them!

[Kari]

Hi all,

I've recently discovered a densly populated riparian zone of monadenia fidelis! I found the first by accident, thought she was a swirly mushroom but when I tapped on her she was hard. I went back the next day and found many. I'm not worried about removing them because the wild population is large and healthy and I always have at least one breeding pair.

They currently live in my largest terrarium with all my native PNW species (banana slugs, monadenias, and a vespericola columbiana). They're timider than my cornu aspersum or cepaea nemoralis but seem to be doing quite well in their new home.

Has anyone else had this many adult monadenias before? I'd be interested to hear about it because it seems these snails are highly coveted and hard to come by. Suppose I'm just lucky!

[astana]

I have 10 Monadenia fidelis myself, also found in a riparian zone. It's strange, some habitats that seem perfectly suitable to them are devoid of snails while in some (very rare cases) they are filled with them. I've searched long and hard for Monadenia in both Washington and Canada and can confirm they're quite hard to come by.


Some of them clustered in the corner of their tank:



And a closeup of a very handsome fella in the water dish:

[Cashell]

Ah, darn it! I was going to ask you to send me some until I saw that you were in the United States of America! 😣

[Kari]

Aw that's unfortunate. Otherwise I would have been happy to.

[Liguus]

I love this species, but I've only kept them once. Wish I could try again but they are indeed hard to find. One thing I thought of is that they like it cool and moist. So theoretically if a terrarium is set up with a peltier cooler and a humidifier it should be optimal for them. I hop to try it out one day.

[Kari]

Lucky for me I don't have to work hard for that because I collected them really close by. I hope you get another chance with them.

I also collected a rare yellow-green shelled juvenile monadenia today. I'll post photos here soon. (If I can find him in the tank haha)

[shysnail]

Beautiful snails.