WARNING-DISTURBING: Shell Detachment

[zakalwe]

Hi folks.

Well Gary, my lone Aspersa, had to be put down this morning.


Shot with FinePix S5700 S700 at 2009-07-26


Shot with FinePix S5700 S700 at 2009-07-26

I posted several photos in one of the shell bleaching threads showing how there was a strange gap between his shell and the white muscle around the aperture. This morning I looked into the tank to see him and his shell at first looked like it had melted, but when I looked down at the substrate below him I saw his shell.

It looks as though the inner layer of his shell became completely detached and the shell slipped off.


Shot with FinePix S5700 S700 at 2009-07-26

Over the past week we've seen him sleeping on the side of the tank with his shell hanging way too far down to look comfortable, so if you see this in your snails be warned that this is most likely what will happen.

If anyone has any tips as to what caused this or ways to prevent it, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks

Cael

[supinesophie]

Nooo! Poor thing! What a shock to find your pet in that state!

RIP

[coyote]

Cael, I'm so sorry for your loss. I have no idea what might have caused that. All kinds of things can go wrong with the mantle, and no one really knows how to prevent them.

Rest in peace, Gary.

[lizzie97444]

aww.. It's sooo sad
R.I.P Gary
At least we have a vet on our way, on this forum, studing bout animals and snails!

[lucyjames]

I am so sorry that you had to find your lovely little snail this way.... R.I.P lovely Gary...

I shall definately pay closer attention to all of my little buddies now, just in case...

[kanin]

I'm very sorry for your loss, it must have been awfull finding him like that.
R.I.P Gary.

I've earlier seen this in wild pomatia where the shell where either completly pulled of like here or dingling at the end of the body. Both thoose snails were also sitting on a vertical. What I thought had happened with the pomatia was that they had syffered a mantle collapse and that gravety had pulled the detached shell of the internal body. I suspected that the mantle collapse where caused by some becteria or virus or perhaps pestilence as several pomatia where afflicted.

I remember that I've read about something similar to this where achatina fulicas where detached from their shells after eating pasta. In that case an explosive swelling of the body had caused the internal body to push out of the shell.

What happened to your snail is hard to say. As coyote said there are so many things that can cause mantle problems, it could be enviromental or by a disease or purely genetic. The shell bleaching that in the picture of the empty shell lokks quite extreme could be the cause as bleaching or whitening of shells are caused by disentigration of the outer layers. This shell disentigration could have been so widespread that it detached the mantle thus causing a mantle collapse. It could have been caused by a disease or something in the enviroment. My guess however would be a genetic affliction of some kind that disentegrated layers of the shell and causing mantle collapse.

[joanna94a]

hi thats what happend to my snail too.it looked as if it fell out of its shell and was horrible to see it like this.hope my others dont go this way.

[snailgirl]

awww