Land snails AIDGAP

Land snails AIDGAP

Land snails AIDGAP is an identification guide to free-living terrestrial snails.

• Covers all 100 species in Britain and Ireland
• Illustrated with line drawings throughout
• Enables identification from living speciments in the field (where possible)

Land snails are widespread but under-recorded. Different but overlapping groups of species are associated with gardens, ancient woodland, wetlands, calcareous grassland and rocks (including walls and ruins) and sand dunes.

This guide features four sets of keys. The first two keys offer two alternative routes to taking identification to family level. Firstly there is a pictorial key, using shell height to width ratio and shell size. Secondly there is is a more traditional dichotomous key to families.

Then the next two keys take identification to species level. The third key uses dichotomous and tabular keys where these are appropriate. The fourth key covers the difficult identifications, for the small number of species requiring dissection.

This snail identification guide is part of the FSC’s AIDGAP series (Aids to Identification in Difficult Groups of Animals and Plants). Our AIDGAP guides are accessible identification keys, suitable for non-specialists from age 16+. Although written and edited by specialists, all AIDGAP guides undergo extensive field tests in draft form before final publication. The author revised the first published version in the light of the testers’ experience. Originally published in 2004, the Second Edition of Land Snails AIDGAP was published in 2008.