Snails Fighting?

[frankjackdaw]

Hi! I have two Helix Aspersa already. I recently found a smaller snail with a cracked shell - probably a Cepaea Nemoralis - so I put them in together. They were fine for a few days, but this evening the bigger aspersa and the newcomer started 'interacting' vigorously, the latter rearing up and appearing to bite the big snail. Do these two species fight? I'll have to separate them tonight, though I'm not sure where to keep the little one for the moment. Can they hurt each other?

thanks!!


Adam

[lucyjames]

They were most likely just "sizing each other up" and taking each other in...

In my experience, I have never seen snails fight... they often rear their heads when a new occupant is put in the tank, but I have never looked on this as an act of agression... more that they are sizing each other up as potential mates ;D

[coyote]

My garlic snails (Oxychilus alliarius) used to fight with each other when the population of the tank got too large. This was not just curiosity or getting acquainted -- there was unmistakable aggression and what looked like biting. I split up the group, putting the adults into a larger tank and keeping the juveniles in the original smaller one. That seemed to stop the "fighting."

But I wouldn't think that 3 snails in a tank would be too crowded for them that they'd get aggressive. Keep in mind that when snails are wooing each other in preparation for mating, they will nuzzle each other, but it's a different kind of contact than the aggressive "fighting" and rearing I witnessed with my garlic snails.

[coyote]

And yes, different but closely-enough-related species will try to mate with each other. (I had a milk snail and an aspersa who mated. The aspersa laid infertile eggs, which got eaten by one of the garlic snails.)

[frankjackdaw]

Thanks for the advice! I've put the little one back in with the others now. The big snail doesn't seem injured at all, it just looked bothered. Hopefully they'll stay out of each others way now. I shall keep an eye on them!

[zakalwe]

I noticed that my Cepea's did this to my Aspersa quite often when they were first in the tank together, and I didn't realize till much later that the Cepea was trying to mate with it. It would keep shooting forward, biting, then throwing it's head back, which is what the Cepea do when they're getting ready to mate.