Semi aquatic African Snails?

Seems very unlikely to me and probably a mix up.

Some of those snails live already in Germany, Arno.

The dealer in Africa sold them to someone in Germany as large "water-snails". Those snails seem to live in the water and only come out for feeding at evening/night.

They live now since a few month in Germany in very wet substrate, 29 to 30 degree during the day with a minimal nightdrop and low ventilation to keep the humidity high. So it looks like they don´t really need the water or maybe the dealer just found them there, because they do the same like tigers? My tigers too prefer to lay around in the pool instead somewhere else and they have here very wet conditons and don´t really would need to drink or take water from the bowl.

Those possible tincta do very well at those conditions and as much as I know, they don´t have a water-bowl in their tank.

All Achatina species are pulmonate snails and so use a lung to breathe, rather than gills. I've never heard of any Achatinid with gills. It may simply be that they bury in the mud near water because it's soft and cool. There are articles on Darwin's (I think) study of how aestivating Helix pomatia can be placed in sea-water for weeks without harm. He was talking about the possibility of them travelling across the sea. But I think that illustrates that they could bury in mud in shallow water and survive for a few days.

Gabi - further to what I said in my emails to you, I've found some pics on the net of supposed "Achatina tincta":
www.shellsfromchina.com/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=1776


These are misleading because although the stripes look similar, they have a non-truncated columella, making them likely to be Limicolaria. To my knowledge all Achatina and Archachatina have a truncated columella:



I'm certainly not saying they aren't Achatina tincta, because I'm totally in the dark about that species, but just check the pictures you're going off.

Now I've seen those pictures, it does look like they are tincta.

The roundness of the spire and the skin tone being so fine really made me wonder if it was some sort of slim Archachatina like papyracea; it's often hard to tell the difference from pictures on some snails. Bequaert's description of papyracea and the shell drawings look very like these "mystery" snails. Gabi mentioned they didn't have a raised V on the tail but with papyracea being sub-genus Megachatinopsis, we've not got any others to compare.

But having seen those pics, it does seem almost certain that's what they are. They are slim, but with very convex whorls. As I said to Gabi, you'd have to get the nepionic whorls looked at, that would tell us sub-genus fairly accurately. tincta are true Achatina. What confused me more was the reams of info on snails labelled as tincta but that were actually Achatina achatina var. elegans.

Now I finnally saw many different Achatinidae species... Some species are very nice!
About many, I never heard before their name: Achatina capelloi being one of them.

Wow
Which specie are they?

I was thinking that was her with her Achatina tincta, but not sure... ;D
In fact they look like to have more rounded shells than those ones that are on the pictures.

You mean Congo and not Republic Democratic of Congo, right?
Thanks for the information about A. tincta.

Yes.
Republic Democratic of Congo ( Ex-Zaire, changed name after the end of the ditactor Mobutu Sese Seko regime)
Capital- Kinshasa

Congo ( I guess is this one that you mean, but sometimes people calls Congo to Zaire, so I just want to be sure ;D).
Capital Brazzaville

Achatina achatina I guess that can be found in Cameroon, and Cameroon share a piece of border line with Congo ( and this area is tropical rainforest), so Achatina achatina may be found in Congo as well.