"Desert" snails

[tsrebel]

I'd like to set up a dryer habitat for snails one day. The ones I have now are moist rainforest like habitats. I thought it would be cool to make a semi-desert with succulents and sandy substrate. I prefer snails to be 2cm or bigger.

What snails would fit?
I've thought of:
Theba pisana
Helicella itala
Otala lactea
Eobania vermiculata
Iberus sp. (if I can get hold of any)
Helix lucorum (if I can get hold of any)
Sphincterochila sp. (real desert snail if I can get some)
Suggestions? (European species and/or easy to get hold of)

Living in Norway, I have really not that much knowledge about how a desert habitat would work.
Warm during the day, colder at night - thinking only heat would be the light.
Low humidity (how low?) during the day and higher at night (how high?).
Ideas?

[tsrebel]

No ideas? No input on the species I've mentioned?

[vallery]

Sorry tsrebel ,

I have no Idea about desert snails and a habitat that you could keep them in as pets. I looked on line and I could find desert snails but nothing about keeping them as pets or what type of habitat you would keep them in. If you find something I hope you will share it with us. I will try to look some more, sounds like an interesting idea.

Vallery

[vallery]

Hi Tsrebel ,


The only snails I can think of close to a desert type snail are Heath snails. I have some and they require a much dryer habitat. I don't know much about them still trying to find answers myself. They live in areas of sandy dunes or sandy hills. They don't do much, don't move around much and I have no Idea what they are eating they will not touch any veg or fruit I give them. They must be eating leaf litter as they are surviving and growing. I know there are a few species of heath but I do not know which one I have. To difficult to tell without any other species of heath to physically compare them to. Hope this is of some help.
vallery

[pinkunicorn]

I will have some input soonish, I think. I need to get acquainted with my new adoptees first though!

[tsrebel]

Thank you all for the input! I won't be able to start this project this year, hopefully next spring. So I have more than enough time to plan how to set it up. Any input is valued!

[gunshotglitter]

If you manage to find a suitable setup, please share!
I had a few Cernuella neglecta, they had a dry tank, a sand-soil susbstrate and were feeding on dry grass and seeds. They seemed fine for a few months but then they all suddenly died and left me completely perplexed.

[tsrebel]

Sad to her that, Gunshotglitter! Did you mix the substrate with calcium? How often did you spray them? Did they have a waterbowl? Did they like cuttlebone?

[gunshotglitter]

Well, a person from a french forum who's been keeping Helicella itala for past few years advised me to do how I did so I was confident enough. I've been spraying them once a week and kept them at 24-28°C. They had a little water bowl but I have never seen them approach it. They have been rasping on their cuttlebone, I didn't put any other source of calcium in there though.

I was devastated when I saw them dying one by one, I even tried to moisten them more often, changed substrate and tried different things but nothing helped. I wish I knew what went wrong

[tsrebel]

I wish that too! I really hope it doesn't end the same way for me. Thanks for the info! I'm so bad in french that, even if I managed to formulate questions, I'd have no idea what the answers could mean.

[tsrebel]

Time for an update. I've set up a semi desert habitat with the following species: Otala lactea, Theba pisana and Sphincterochila candidissima. The last one eats moss, lichens and algae, but I really hope I can find something they will eat. The habitat i ca 60% sand and 40% coco soil, divided in two separate areas. Above the desert part, I have a halogen spot that gets really hot, while the normal part have cold white LED spots. I'm planting some succulents in the desert part and some other plants in the soil part. The sand is mostly cat litter (the type that don't clump, no additives, just small balls of burnt clay), with some real desert sand and stones (from an area very high in calcium. There is also a water bowl and cuttlefish bones. The ventilation is only on the desert side.
I'll update with pictures soon and how the project develop.

[Cashell]

This sounds very interesting. Looking foreward to seeing the set-up and the residents living in it.

[muddydragon]

Sounds very exciting! good luck!

[tsrebel]

Here are some pictures of the residents from my trip to Almeria (Spain) last week:

Otala lactea murcica and Theba pisana

Sphincterochila candidissima
More snails that I saw there can be seen here
And the landscape

[muddydragon]

beautiful snails and beautiful photos of the landscape and other snails you saw i'm quite jealous!!

[tsrebel]

Thank you! It was so much fun to do that trip (my first vacation outside Scandinavia in many years). And finding rare snails (Iberus gualtieranus gualtieranus) was very exciting I definately want to make more such travels in the future! When I was a kid, my drem was (at one point) to become a snail scientist (malacologist) and travel to Amazonas to discover new snail species. Unfortunately the boring study of biology, my phobia for insects (there was some really scary grasshoppers in Spain btw...) and my new dream to become an author (I've made it to the "published but poor poet"-stage) came in the way

[kb.trekkie]

I LOVE THOSE SNAILS!!!!

[Cashell]

Wow, Otala lactea have such nice shells!

[Deleted]

What interesting snails. I like the black one with the white shell :-)