Species Focus - Garden Snail (Cornu aspersum)

If you see something rare and unusual, you’re more than likely to record it. However, those species we see regularly are often the most under-recorded. You’d assume that Cofnod holds lots of Garden Snail records, but it may come as a surprise that we only have 257 records of this species on our database (compared to 5000 hedgehog records). Clearly Garden Snails are not that rare!

Being a lowland species it’s unsurprising that large areas of acidic upland North Wales are devoid of Garden Snail records. Central and northeast Anglesey, parts of the Llŷn Peninsula and coastal areas south of Barmouth all have suitable habitat for this snail, but we have yet to receive records from here. Can you help fill in these gaps?

Garden Snails are often found on sand dunes, mortared walls and – obviously – gardens. All sites where these large snails have access to calcium carbonate which they need to build their shells from.

Garden Snails have impressively long tentacles and an attractively patterned shell

To encourage recording and for a bit of fun we invite you to upload the best photo of your Garden Snail when submitting your record. In October's On The Record we will show a selection of our favourite images including a Star Photo!

Please submit your records via the Cofnod ORS or by using the LERC Wales App.