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Great pond snails eating submerged leaves

 

 

The great pond snail is one of the most common snail species in our waters. It is a lung-breathing snail belonging to the Lymnaeidae family that can be found in slowly flowing or stationary fresh water bodies. In the water it moves along aquatic plants and rises from time to time to the water surface to breathe – thus a pulmonate snail.

 

The height of the shell can be up to 5 centimetres; the shell colour of living snails is rather dark but their empty shells are whitish-yellow, partly translucent in light.

 

The omnivorous great pond snail feeds on aquatic plants, dead fish and as Arne’s photo shows, leaves from land plants that drop into the water in autumn.