species/common name
Posted by Adam Fredette on May 13, 2008
Q: Hello. I'm wondering what the common name (and/or species name) of our most common land snail is in the western new york area? I'm guessing the common name might be land snail, but that sounds a little vague to me. Thank you.
Habitat: pond/lake
State: New York
Habitat: pond/lake
A: Boy, now that's a difficult one! Common names for animals and plants are created when people want to label organisms they are reasonably familiar with and want to differentiate one from another. With something like land snails, my impression is that in most cases, people just lump them all together and don't have specific names for them. The scientific community will definitely have genus and species names but even they may not have common names that they use/recognize. I did look around online to see what I could find and found nothing I thought would be very helpful for your specific question.
Take a look at this web site address for a symposium on mollusks (including land snails) that will soon be held in Illinois. Check out www.malacological.org This site should introduce you to some other avenues you may want to take to find out more about land snails. Good luck.
John Wiessinger ( May 14, 2008)