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Re:Snails
I wrote:
> >I watched a Coumbian ramshorn chew through the base of an Amazon sword
> leaf.
> >It was the third one to come off. So it happens.
Robert wrote:
> Just as with the many misnamed plants and fish we have all seen and
> kept, snails suffer from mis-applied common names. The so-called
> "Colombian Ramshorn" is not a ramshorn at all, it it the only known flat
> spiraled Apple Snail, and like all its known cousins save one, it is an
> avid plant eater. The much smaller brown to red to white "true"
> ramshorn does not eat live healthy plants.
Actually, I knew it is an apple snail, yet that is the common name. So
that's what I call it. I hope that's okay. If you know how to tell the one
that does NOT eat vascular plants from all the others, I'd like some clues
how to do it. I happen to love those big ones, but my plants can't take it.
I have Venezuelan ramshorns, and I have to be careful when setting up a
breeding tank that I don't introduce any. With apple snails, it would be
easier to spot them, and the eggs are deposited in huge clumps above the
water surface, so you don't transport the eggs on plants accidently, either.
Bob Dixon