Cepaea nemoralis is a common and familiar species of land snail. It goes by several common names, including brown-lipped snail, grove snail, and lemon snail. It occurs throughout much of Europe, north to Sweden and east to Ukraine, including the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. It has also been introduced to North America (Northeast and Pacific Northwest) and Venezuela. The grove snail lives in a variety of habitats, including woodlands, plains, highlands, agricultural fields, coasts, dunes, parks, and gardens. The snail is primarily an herbivore, and prefers dead vegetation to fresh. It will occasionally eat dead invertebrates, but this is believed to be incidental when ingesting plant material. Earlier this year, Papo introduced us to the first figure specifically marketed as this species in toy form (the ToyAnimalWiki site has an older Bullyland figure identified as this species, but that appears to be a tentative community-based ID).
First the sculpt. And in case anyone is wondering, yes, this is merely a repaint of Papo’s 2020 edible snail. While that doesn’t bother me, it gives the figure a shell that is more heavily textured than the real thing (the grove snail should have a rather smooth shell). The bottom of the figure is even stamped with the year 2020 like the original release!
The figure is 6.0 c across its widest points. The width of the shell is 2.5 cm and the height 1.7 cm, putting it in the 1:1 scale range.
The grove snail is highly variable in terms of the color of its shell, and this figure is painted a lemon yellow with brown spirals (sometimes referred to as the ‘yellow mid-banded’ form). What give the animal its common name ‘brown-lipped’ snail isn’t that it has brown mouthparts, but rather the lip, or rim, of the shell is brown, and that feature is captured here nicely. The fleshy parts of the body are painted like the edible snail figure.
Not a whole lot much to say about this figure, since it has a rather simple morphology and it’s merely a repaint of an earlier model. As mentioned in most of my reviews of Papo’s insects and other invertebrates, this company isn’t spineless when it comes to making critters that lack a spine :-). It’s exciting to get a new species of terrestrial mollusk, even if it is just a repaint. It joins the Safari Ltd. white-lipped snail (C. hortensis; another unique figure) as the only two members of the genus Cepaea in toy form (at least as indicated by the manufacturer). If you’re a collector of interesting taxa, this is one to consider!
