A few summers ago these guys invaded my patio. At first I didn’t think much of it, a few large snails popping up around the patio. Then more and more showed up. Then baby snails with tiny shells appeared and I knew things were getting a bit crazy.

For some reason that summer was the summer of the snail where I lived! I don’t have a garden and they didn’t bother my neighbours, it was a fairly confined little area that the snail infestation occurred in, and thankfully they’ve been kept to manageable levels since that summer.

I never gave them much thought in terms of wondering what species they were until recently, so I grabbed my camera and got some closeup shots of this guy. As far as I could tell it’s the same type of snail I’ve seen regularly around Ontario since I was a little kid.

My first check told me this was a banded wood snail. What a cool name huh? But I didn’t see much in terms of that being an official type of snail, so I dug deeper. Turns out the actual species is Cepaea nemoralis. And, it turns out the more common name is the grove snail, or black-lipped snail.

 

I like the reasoning for the black-lipped snail. If you notice the edge of the shell, near the opening, has a dark brown/black ring. That is where the name comes from. Another species is called the white-lipped snail, and it has a white ring near the opening!

Only about a dozen or so of these guys showed up over the course of this past summer, so I think we’ve reached a peaceful equilibrium where I don’t have to worry about the crunching sound of snail shells as I walk around my patio.

 

I’ve never been one to take many close-up / macro photographs, but it was kind of fun having such a slow moving subject to get photos of. Perhaps I’ll see what other small creatures I can find in the urban jungle!