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Ramshorn snails
Ed wrote:
"I have recently in the past 2-3 days been watching some unknown snail
crawl across my tank, it started off small now it's about the size of
apencil eraser. it looks liek a ram but the color's different. it has a
solid color base and spots over it, they seem to be growing with it and
the snail is doing a very good job helping with the chores so i'm giong
to leave it. Does anyone know if this is a ram? doesn't look like the
red/yellow ram's i've seen."
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Just as there seem to be a number of differing species commonly called
"trumpet" snails, there too are many snails that we (and field guides
pertaining to gastropoda) generally call "rams-horn" snails. For
instance, melanoides tuberculata is cited as the trumpet snail in
various aquarium fish text, but I have species which are not m.
tuberculata but which seem to burrow in the substrate and invariably
exhibit similar behavior. By rough visual comparison, these seem to be
m. turricula and tarebia granifera. Some may be species of the genus
elimia, which possess the same conical shells but which differ in shell
size, smoothness and color.
With regard to "ramshorn" snails, I have a few which resemble your
description. I haven't been able to find this particular species in any
text, and perhaps it is a variation on helisoma spp., frequently cited
as "ramshorn" in fishkeeping text.
Moreover, a number of different snails frequently called "ramshorn" are
quietly moving about in a couple of my tanks. These seem to be of the
planorbella complex, and have varying body colors ranging from bright
red to grey and brown. Their shells vary in coloration, smoothness, and
markings, but retain the same general shell shape of the helisoma spp.
They stay small and do not appear to harm healthy plant leaves. Most
interesting are what appear to be planorbella scalaris, whose shells
differ from conventional ramshorn shells in that the posterior end of
the shell appears to have been sliced off at an angle, so that the shell
is not completely round.
I imagine that upon closer inspection a variety of gastropoda are
evident in many of our tanks. They are an interesting addition to
planted aquaria.
Erik Leung
San Francisco
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