Otala in the wild

[coyote]

Here's a pic of a milk snail (Otala lactea) sleeping in a Mahonia aquifolium bush in a park in my city, close to San Francisco Bay. Several creeks run through town, arising from limestone-based rock in the Santa Cruz Mountains to the south. Their calcium-rich waters host many wild snail populations along their banks.

Attachments:

[goose]

Amazing how they labouriously climb their way up such bushes, it must take some time stretching from leaf to leaf.

[coyote]

They love climbing up. I have been in nearby parks where every fencepost and rail is encrusted with masses of estivating Otalas.