Similarity of a. zanzibarica and a. iredalei

[slackie]

Hi,
my new achatina zanzibaricas should arrive by every day. It is not quite usual species in Czech Republic and I have found just a little info, so I´ll ask you:
Is achatina iredalei albino-subspecie of achatina zanzibarica? Some say yes and some say no. For me it sounds logical, I mean they have the same shell-shape, they come from the same location and they don´t lay eggs, but they birth their hatchlings (my English skill fails here, I hope you do understand .
The biggest BUT that people mention is that a. zanzibarica´s shell is usually round 10-13 cm, whereas a. iredalei is up to 9 cm.
I do not remember where I once read an article about that our european kept population of a. iredalei comes from a few snails which here imported much earlier than a. zanzibarica was. Then I think it´s possible, that A. iredalei´s growth lowered with the time (most of known species grows bigger in nature than in captivity, right?).
Most of zanzibaricas in Czech republic are F1-F2, so... so what? What do you think?
I am wondering about trying to keep zanzis with iredaleis to see what will happen

[wolf]

Hi slackie,
perhaps it could be helpful to take a closer look into the paper of Bequaert. He considers both to be different species (being right or wrong in this case...... ).
BEQUAERT, J.C. (1950): Studies in the Achatininae, a group of African land snails -- Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 105 (1): 1-216, 82 pls.
zanzibarica: pp. 113ff, iredalei pp. 123ff.
Kind regards: wolf