TINY TUESDAY - CEPAEA HORTENSIS

I was up and out early walking again, but it was so wet underfoot that I didn’t go into my field - mainly because I wasn't wearing the right footwear and I’m not that keen on getting my feet very wet.

I was looking for something tiny for today and spotted several water drops on flowers, spiders’ webs and flies, but then I found this handsome creature.  There were several round about, climbing on the conkers so now I know where all the snails have gone instead of attending the AOG!

The horse chestnut trees, which were on my walk back home, are all suffering badly from the disease that seems to be afflicting most of them around here, namely the leaf-miner moth.  After hatching, the caterpillars get inside the leaves and eat the internal tissues, which causes brown or white blotches to develop between the leaf veins.  These moths have been in Britain for almost 20 years now and have spread rapidly.  However, the larvae do provide food for blue tits, so it’s not all bad news but the ones that aren’t eaten survive the winter as pupae in the leaf mines.

On this particular tree, and there are many around here, most of the leaves now have these blotches on them and it looks as if the trees are dying, but they have survived for quite some time like this.  Many of the trees seem to drop their leaves well before September/October but there do seem to be more conkers on the trees this year, some of them quite large.  However, they aren’t collected as they used to be many years ago.  I think “Elf & Safety” has a lot to do with that since children are not allowed to play the game of Conkers in the school playground, coupled with the fact that children don’t seem to want to go  out and play games, but prefer to stay in and gaze at their screens instead!

Anyway, back to the snail - I was glad that I had my “selfie stick” with me, so that I could zoom in and get a good shot.  I did question why he and his mates hadn’t bothered to attend the AOG and he said that they weren’t keen on travelling to Japan, as you never knew what you might catch!  He did say that, all things being equal, they might consider attending in 2024.  However, as the life span of these snails is 3 to 4 years, it might even be their children attending!

Many of you know that I like to find out more about what I am photographing, so when I got back home, Mr. Google was very helpful and from my research, I believe that this is a White-lipped Snail - Cepaea hortensis - also known as the Banded Snail, because it has a banded patterning and is the most colourful and variable snail in the UK.  The surface of the shell is semi-glossy, as you can see, and it can have 4 or 5 whorls, which this one has.  

Apparently, although this snail is common, it is particularly numerous in Scotland, so I wonder how long it took to get to Swindon?  More information told me that banded snails rarely eat living plants. Instead, they're more like Mother Nature's vacuum cleaner. They feast on dead and dying leaves, fungi, algae, moss, and insects like thrips and aphids, so it was obviously having a great feast on this horse chestnut tree.  So now we all know a bit more about this lovely snail - and as they eat aphids, perhaps we shouldn’t be so keen to throw them over our garden fences!  As someone said the other day “Every day is a school day on Blip”!

“By perseverance,
     the snail reached the ark.”
Charles Spurgeon

P.S.  There is still time for you to sponsor me to help me get up to £1,000 for my 100 Abstracts Challenge, which I finished on the 29th July in aid of the Mamie Martin Fund, which provides financial help for impoverished girls in North Malawi to obtain a good secondary school education.  

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MaureenIles