Apple snails are tropical and sub-tropical freshwater snails from the familyAmpullariidae (sometimes referred to as Pilidae). The Ampullariidae are divided inseveral genera. The genera

Asolene, Felipponea, Marisa,

and

Pomacea

are the NewWorld genera (South America, Central America, the West Indies and the SouthernU.S.A.), while the genera

Afropomus, Lanistes

and

Saulea

are found in Africa. Thegenus

Pila

is native in both Africa and Asia.

How to recognise an apple snail

: basicguide to discriminate between apple snails and other freshwater snails.One of the most characteristic features of apple snails is the tube like organ (siphon)used to breathe while staying submerged. If your snail has such organ it's definitely anapple snail. The shell opening (aperture) of the apple snails increases quickly withevery whorl. This gives them a globose (round) shell shape. The eggs of most apple

Pomacea bridgesii (effuse)

snails are laid above the water level. If your snail laid her eggs above the water, you can be sure it's an apple snail. If not it can stillbe an apple snail (some apple snails do lay their eggs in the water). The long labial tentacles on each side of the mouth arepresent in all apple snail species. The shell door, common in the Prosobranchia sub-class, enables the snail to close its shell whenthe body is retracted.

Well adapted

Apple snails are exceptionally well adapted to tropical regions with periods of drought alternated with periods of excessive rainfall.This adaptation is reflected in their life style: moderately amphibious and being equipped with a shell door enabling the snail toclose its shell (to prevent drying out while hiding in the mud during dry periods). A typical adaptation of apple snails is thecombination of a branchial respiration system comparable with the gills of a fish (at the right side of the snail body) and a lung (atthe left side of the body). This lung/gill combination expands the action radius of the snail in search for food. Many apple snailspecies deposit the eggs above the waterline in a calcareous clutch. This remarkably strategy of these aquatic snails protect theireggs against predation by fish and other water inhabitants. Another predator specific adaptation in the apple snail genera Pomaceaand Pila, is the tubular siphon at their left side, used to breathe air while they stay submerged, thus making them less vulnerable tosnail eating birds. Apple snails inhabit various ecosystems: ponds, swamps and rivers. Although they occasionally leave the water,they remain mainly submerged. In spite the fact that many snail species are hermaphrodite (being male and female at the sametime) apple snails are definitely not: they have separated sexes (gonochoristic) and a male and a female are needed forreproduction.

A common aquarium pet

The apple snails are popular aquarium-pets because of their attractiveappearance and size. When taken good care of some apple snail species canreach a large size (15 cm / 6 inch diameter in case of Pomacea maculata,sometimes faulty referred to as Ampullarius gigas). Apple snails are in factthe biggest living freshwater snails on earth. The most common apple snail inaquarium shops is Pomacea bridgesii (spike-topped apple snail). Thisspecies comes in different colours from brown to albino or yellow and evenblue, with or without banding. The body of these snails also shows greatvariation from black to yellow and grey. Another common apple snail isPomacea canaliculata, this snail is bigger, rounder and is more likely to eatyour plants, which makes it less suitable for most aquaria. These snails alsocome in different shell and body colours.The Giant ramshorn snail, Marisa cornuarietis, although not always recognized as an apple snail due to its discoidal shape, alsoranks the popular aquatic pets. Occasionally, the Florida apple snail (Pomacea paludosa) is found in the aquarium trade and areoften wild collected from ditches and ponds in Florida. The giant Pomacea maculata, raremy makes its way into aquaria. Withtropical fish expeditions, sometimes other apple snail species are collected and offered for sale. Apple snails are often sold underthe name Golden mystery snail and are given incorrect names like Ampullarius for the genus instead of Pomacea and speciesnames like gigas instead of maculata. More info about this can be read in the species section of this website.Apple snails that are found in the aquarium trade don't make high demands when it comes to water quality: they can live very wellin clear, streaming, oxygen-rich water as well in still water, with rotting organic waste, containing almost no oxygen. In general oneshould apply the same rules for water quality as with fish (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate etc) and the water should not be too soft. Likemost snails, apple snails prefer calcium rich water. If the calcium concentration in the water isn't high enough (soft water), theyaren't able to build a strong shell and become susceptible to shell damage, but even in good conditions, some snails still get littleholes in the shell surface, especially in the older parts of their shell. This is a naturally occurring process and as long it's only at thesurface, you shouldn't worry too much about it. In the 'snail disease' section, you can see an example of a snail with a damagedshell. Young and healthy snails are somewhat protected against this as the outer layer of the shell consist of a protein layer that

prevents a breakdown of the shell, but damaged shells and shells of older snails are quite vulnerable to shell detoriation.

Warning!

If the tap-water in your area contains copper and/or other metals, use one of these water preparation products that catchaway those metals bofere putting the snail in the water. Apple snails are very sensitive for these compounds (especially copper).You won't be the first one loosing a snail due to this snail-toxic substances in the water. If you see that the snails becomecompletely inactive or if the snails, especially the little ones, try to leave the water after a water change: get a product to treat thewater (like aquasafe or for those with access to a lab: use EDTA or something similar). When there are many apple snails in atank, the water tends to become cloudy because apple snails have a large amount of microorganisms in their intestine, which helpto digest the food, and which are expelled with the faeces. These micro-organisms (amoebocytes) should not cause any harm tothe fish and can even serve as a food source for young fish. Fresh food (lettuce etc.) are more likely to induce this micro-organismbased clouding of the water. If the snails are fed with dry fish food, the water will stay cleaner. It is a good idea to do regular waterchanges if you have many creatures in one tank, just like one would advise with fish, to maintain good water quality and to avoidaccumulation of toxic substances and waste. By the way, apple snails are good indicators for the oxygen-level in your tank. Whenthere isn't much oxygen in the water, the snails will regularly come to the surface to inhale fresh air through the breathing siphon.Only when there is enough oxygen for them in the water, they don't need their lung and solely depend on their gill.Apple snails are most active during the night, which already indicates their preference for the darker places of their environment.During the day, they remain mostly in the shadow of plants and creep away in the bottom and/or mud. When the dark comes in, theapple snail becomes more active and crawls around in search for food, a mating partner or a good place to deposit eggs. Keep inmind that there is a large variation in activity levels amongst the different apple snail species. For example Pomacea canaliculata,the common channeled apple snail or better known as the Golden apple snail (incorrect! 'Golden' should only be used for yellowPomacea bridgesii snails), is relatively active during the day and often risides close to the water surface. Pomacea flagellata, theMexican or Maya apple snail, hides in the bottom during the day. The well known Pomacea bridgesii (mystery snail, spiketoppedapple snail, golden apple snail) fits in between of these two activity levels. Apple snails don't need artificial illumination like TL-tubes, but as you probably want to observe them, a standard aquarium light-lid would suffice. If you keep the snails in sunlight, likehappens with an outside pond, the shell of the snails become covered with algae, giving them a green and hairy look. This mightlook scary, but it's harmless for the snails. Suggestion: If you would like to raise baby apple snails, it would be a good idea toprovide enough light, so that some algae can grow in the aquarium. Little apple snails have a better chance to survive the delicatefirst weeks after hatching if they have access to algae as food source. Light dependent growth has been observed by Pomaceaglauca. If the snails were kept in a completely dark environment, their growth decreased, compared with animals that were kept ina 12 hour/day light environment.Apple snails are highly depending on their smell sense. With their smell sense they are able to locate food and recognise othersnails of their own species, which is important to find a good mating partner. It's therefore not surprising that apple snail have awell-developed smell sense. The vision of the apple snail on the other hand is rather weak (poor ability to form images and badimage quality) and functions merely as a light direction detector. The tactile sense is well developed as can be seen as the snailwalks over a small object or encounters an obstacle. The hearing capabilities of the apple snail are worthless, even more: they arecompletely deaf.

The Shape of the Shell in genus

Pomacea:

Calculate your snail's shell volume:

= 1/3Pi * (Shell width/2)^2 * Shell height

The

shell

of most apple snail species is oval, subglobosely or globoselyconic, while some species (like

Marisa cornuarietis

) have a rather discoidalshell (flat shell). Apple snails have a

dextral

shell (shell opening at the rightlike in the picture above) except the apple snails from the genus

Lanistes

whohave a

sinistral

shell (shell opening at the left), although there are reports ofsinistral animals in the other generaWhen a snail grows, the shell has to be enlarged to fit the snail's body. To accomplish that, a snail gradually extents its shell byadding new parts at the shell opening. The growth process is carried out in two stages: In the first stage the thin, transparant andorganic outer layer (periostracum) is created, on which the calcified inner layers are deposited in the second stage. The shellmaterial is secreted by specialized cells of the mantle. Apple snails can grow their shell very fast under the right conditions: peakrates of 0.5 cm (0.2 inch) new shell a day do occur. The computer animation above illustrated the growth of a shell. The oldest partof the shell is located at the top, while the most recent part is located near the shell opening (aperture). When a new shell part isadded, small vertical lines (transverse stria) are formed on the surface of the shell. The thickness and regularity of those linesvaries with the environmental conditions, the age of the snail and the species. They provide information about the environmentalconditions during the snail's life (similar to what the grains of wood tell us about the life of a tree). The operculum or trapdoor ofapple snails grows in a similar way as the shell: a new material is added in a circular fashion. The result is a concentric operculumwith the oldest part in the center. The operculum is only enforced with a calcium layer in the genus Pila, the other genera have ahorny operculum. Due to the way snails solve the growth problem (enlarging their shell), they always have to carry the wholeconstruction with them, even if they do not inhabit the oldest whorls. Crustaceans and insects, for example, use another option toovercome the growth problem: they regulary shed their whole skin when they grow and replace it with a larger one. The advantageof that method above the snail-grow method is that they do not have to carry around obsolete body parts. On the other hand, acrustacean or an insect is a very vulnerable when it has shed its old skin and the new skin still has to harden

Digestive system

The digestive system of apple snails is adapted to feed on aquatic plants.Roughly it can be in five regions: the intake region (mouth and buccal cavity with radulaand jaws), the pre-digestion region (oesophagus with salivary glands, lateral pouchs andcrop), digestion region (three chambered stomach with the associated digestive gland),uptake region (intestine) and the excretion region (rectum and anus).

The

mouth

of the apple snail is a vertical slit opening, located between the labialtentacles and leading to the buccal cavity.Food is located with the labial tentacles and when needed gathered from thewater surface with foot.

The

buccal cavity

, a muscular cavity with a set of calcareous jaws, 2 radula knobs and the radula (rasptongue), is situated behind the mouth opening. The radula lies on top of the radula knobs(odontophores) and is covered with several rows (26 to 53), each consisting of 7 renewable chitinousteeth. When the radula knobs are moved from each other, the radula is bend and stretched, thisspreading the teeth on it, which provides the grasp function. After the food has pulled into the buccalcavity, the strong, calcareous

jaws

cut off the piece near the mouth opening. When the snail eats, thebuccal cavity if brought toward the mouth opening and then a complex mechanism of grasping andcutting starts.