Land Snails and Slugs - The Terrestrial Gastropods

[bmathison1972]

Glad you got the 'Jungle Bugs' snail, @snailtime ; when I posted that review, I didn't know who made them but I have come to learn it is COG Ltd. from their 'bucket' sets.

Wow, I'd love a painted set of those Utopia snails!

[snailtime]

Glad you got the 'Jungle Bugs' snail, @snailtime ; when I posted that review, I didn't know who made them but I have come to learn it is COG Ltd. from their 'bucket' sets.

Wow, I'd love a painted set of those Utopia snails!

Interesting, thanks for sharing! COG Ltd. has made a lot of great stuff.

Yes, I'm very glad to have found a set of Utopia snails that was already painted. I could have painted them myself, but I doubt my paint job would have come out looking that good. 

[snailtime]

The last big post I want to make is about the snail figures produced by Nirvana Studio 涅槃自然工作室. These figures have an interesting backstory and also ended up being much more difficult to acquire than anticipated. They began as a Chinese kickstarter campaign. Here's a link to the original kickstarter page. It's in Chinese but a quick spin through Google Translate makes it easy to read.

The creator of the figures is really into conservation work and was saddened when he learned about the story of the Polymita picta snail, also known as the Cuban land snail. These beautiful snails are endangered due to overharvesting for their shells, which are highly prized by collectors. One of the guys behind Nirvana Studio had an idea, what if the shells could be collected ethically? He decided to make a figure series so people could collect the snails without hurting them and become educated about species's plight. So, inspired by Japanese gashapon figures and with conservation in mind, the kickstarter project was launched in early 2020. The series was to consist of six snails including two subspecies, which can be seen in the promo image below.


The snails represented the wide range of colors and patterns found in real Polymita picta. Backers to the kickstarter could choose to get one or two at random or they could choose to buy the entire set. The percentages in the image above represent the chances of drawing each figure at random. There was also a second version of these figures in which the snail figure was sitting on a leaf. The leaf versions were exclusive to the kickstarter and were never produced again after it ended. To increase the appeal of the figures and target a wider audience, all figures had a magnet placed underneath them so they could be stuck on the refrigerator. Here's a photo from the kickstarter page showing some of the snails getting airbrushed.


As a kickstarter reward, a bonus seventh snail was promised to be given to a select few lucky people (roughly 10% of backers). The people who were chosen to receive the bonus snail were to be selected at random. The bonus snail represented an entirely new species, Polymita venusta. The design of the bonus figure was kept secret for some time, but was eventually revealed to be a P. venusta figure crawling on a strawberry. Each strawberry seed was meticulously hand-painted. Nirvana Studio expressed in some social media posts that painting these figures was a very painstaking affair. These strawberry snails were exclusive to the kickstarter and were never produced again after it ended due to the difficulty of producing them.

After the kickstarter ended, Nirvana Studio expressed interest in continuing to produce the basic six snail figures from the campaign to continue to support conservation and species awareness. These six snails were continuously produced for some time and were available through online stores. The gashapon-like aspects of this series were emphasized and for fun, a seventh "bonus" or "hidden" figure was again made available. This time, instead of being the strawberry snail it was a glow-in-the-dark or "luminous" snail figure.

This is the point that discovered the figures. I saw an eBay listing for a set. I didn't understand what I was looking at when I saw it and the listing had been poorly translated into English. The wrong species name was in the listing and they were pretty expensive. They also looked a little too real... I wondered if they were made with real snail shells. I'm not interested in purchasing endangered animal parts, so I passed. A few months went by and I took another look. The listing claimed they were completely made of resin, so I decided to go for it and buy them. Unfortunately, at this point Nirvana Studio had an issue with the manufacturing components for making the snails. The parts used for production had broken. Months passed and the issue had not be resolved. I was disappointed. 

I ended up making my way onto a Chinese version of eBay and figuring out how to export stuff from China. This was not easy to figure out, but using this method I managed to assemble a full set of the original six snails and the glow-in-the-dark snail. More hunting left me very fortunate as I was able to track down a set of the kickstarter-exclusive leaf versions, piece by piece. I was still hunting for the ultra-rare strawberry snail though and wasn't having much luck. Then, I got a huge stroke of luck and found a strawberry snail too. All traces of this set have since disappeared from the English-speaking web as far as I can tell, so I'm very glad I was able to hunt these guys down! Now without further ado, here's the collection:

You can see some of the different boxes the figures came in in the back.


Two packaging styles, the original gashapon style is on the right. The lower tentacles on these figures proved to be incredibly fragile, causing Nirvana to shift to the packaging style on the left after the kickstarter campaign ended.


The original six figures.



The kickstarter-exclusive leaf versions.



The incredible strawberry snail! Has there ever been a greater snail figure? 



The glow-in-the-dark snails that were included as a "hidden" figure later. They glow an intense blue color. There are two very slightly different versions here - an early version of the figure that did not include a magnet and the later version that did.





Overall, this is such a great set and it's a bummer they're so hard to get outside of China. The leaf on the strawberry on my strawberry snail figure is slightly broken and the tip of the leaf on the black Polymita picta leaf figure is also broken off. This is fine with me, but illustrates how incredibly fragile these figures can be. Resin breaks very easily and there was some general damage I had to deal with after these guys made their long journey to me. Thankfully most of the broken parts were in the container with the figures and some superglue was enough to fix things

[snailtime]

Time for even more snails and slugs  I found a pair of squishy snails made by Play Visions in 2001 on eBay. These guys are more toys than they are figures, but I decided to add them to the collection anyways. They've presumably yellowed with age a bit over the years making them look a little gross, but I like them all the same. Apparently these were sold at Rainforest Cafes and the packaging refers to them as "Pearl & Confetti Snails," part of the "Squeeze Me Squirgles" line. One has glittery purple fluid inside, the other has blue.

[snailtime]

I also found an old set of "Wind-Up Snails." I had posted some wind-up snails earlier, but these look like the original iteration of the toy. The last photo shows the new snails with the one I had posted previously. The ones I already had were recently produced and have white plastic bodies. These ones have bodies that are more clear and seem to have yellowed with age.

[snailtime]

Here's a set of unbranded plastic sea creatures I found. Included is a land snail for some reason. Earlier in this thread I posted a similar set of sea creatures that also included a land snail. The last picture shows the newly obtained snail with the one I had posted previously for comparison. I like the realistic paint job on the new one 

[snailtime]

Another vintage rubber slug! This time in a new shade of green cast in a soft, rubbery material. I think this could be the original slug! This is the only slug that has a maker's mark on the bottom, although I don't recognize the logo. A few of the other slugs said "China" on their undersides, but up until this point I haven't seen anything else. If anyone can help identify the logo please let me know. The new slug has been added to the herd 

[snailtime]

Last snail for now is something I never would have purchased normally. It's a rare snail toy made by Steiff sometime between 1961-1963. The snail is named "Nelly" and if you look up "Steiff Nelly Snail" you'll see that this is an incredibly expensive little toy    I've known of it for a while and as adorable as it is, that's just not a price I'm wiling to pay for a toy. However, the other day I was browsing on eBay and found a seller selling this snail, along with a few other rare Steiff toys for practically nothing. I decided to go for it! Now I have a Nelly    Nelly came in at least two different colors. Mine is the brown spotted one, which is actually my favorite of the two colors I've seen. I will obviously not be seeking out the other color because I am not spending hundreds of dollars on a snail toy, but if I get lucky a second time and find another dirt cheap eBay listing I'll probably buy it. My Nelly is missing the neck tag and is a little beat up but I couldn't care less   

[snailtime]

Something incredible came to me in the mail today and I'm so excited to share with everyone! Susanne from STS generously sold me her three Bullyland slugs and they safely arrived from Denmark today!      I still can't believe it. I've wanted these slugs so badly and for so long and I can't get over the fact that they're now a part of my collection. I am so grateful for Susanne's kindness, she is truly a wonderful person and chatting with her over email was so very pleasant 

Without further ado, I present the trifecta!




The 1994 set of snails and slugs made by Bullyland is now complete! Here are the slugs with their snaily brethren.


Just look at those sluggy faces! <3


These slugs are all repaints of a single, very detailed sculpt. I really appreciate the texture detail on the mantle and the nice detailed tubercles on the foot. The faces look quite good as well. As far as species IDs go, it's a little hard to say for the yellow and black slugs, but I have some ideas. Let's go through them slug by slug!

The black slug has some brown spotting on its mantle. Remembering that these were made by a German company (Bullyland) I'm pretty confident this slug is meant to represent Arion ater, AKA the black Arion or European black slug. Another ID I considered was Limax cinereoniger, but seeing that that's a much rarer species and has a light-colored keel (which this figures lacks) among other things, I'm sticking with Arion ater. Although Arion ater is commonly a jet-black slug, they can be brown too. Some individuals are both black and brown making this ID even more likely. On top of all this, these slugs are also quite common and therefore a likely inspiration for a figure.




Moving on to the red slug! This ID is easy. There aren't many red slugs in Europe and this is most certainly Arion rufus, AKA the red Arion or European red slug. Like A. ater, A. rufus has lots of color morphs. Some individuals are bright red like this figure, some are more orange, and some are brown. The red ones are the most striking! Like A. ater, A. rufus is quite common and therefore also a likely inspiration.




Lastly is the yellow slug. This one is the one that's stumped me the most as far as IDs go. I'm sure most people's thought when they see this is that it's meant to represent a banana slug - most likely the Pacific banana slug, Ariolimax columbianus. While that's certainly a possibility, I think we should consider that the other two slugs in the series are European species. I suspect that this yellow slug is also supposed to represent a European species. There are two possibilities that come to mind, Limacus flavus AKA the cellar slug and Limax maximus AKA the leopard slug. Both of these species are European and fairly common. Both can be yellow with dark spots/stripes. L. flavus tends to be very yellow but the spots are typically more greenish or brown than black. L. maximus has black spots and stripes but the body is typically more grey than yellow (although some individuals are yellowish). Which species is it? I really have no clue. In my mind I've been kind of thinking of it as being L. flavus but I'm not totally satisfied. A. columbianus probably looks the most like the figure but is a North American species. But then again, banana slugs are pretty widely known all over the world (I think?) so maybe the German sculptures actually were inspired by banana slugs when they were making this one. Your guess is as good as mine.




(There are now only two figures I'm missing, the yellow-shelled snail made by New-Ray and the Polymita picta made by WPRS Studio 微胖人生事务所.  )

[NSD Bashe]

My first contribution to this thread:



I'm afraid I don't know the brand, or what type of snail it is

[snailtime]

My first contribution to this thread:



I'm afraid I don't know the brand, or what type of snail it is

Very nice, thanks for sharing    I have one of those too and also don't know the brand or species. It's a nice land snail figure though!

[NSD Bashe]

I think I might've actually found the brand of a different snail you posted before:

This one isn't really a toy or a figure but it's close enough to go into the collection. It's sold on Amazon as an aquarium decoration. It's made of silicone and has a suction cup on the underside. It looks like a land snail wearing the shell of a sea snail.

This one seems to be from the brand Aquatop which also makes other interesting little silicone creatures like a nautilus, leafy sea dragon and various lobsters and jellyfish

https://www.ebay.com/itm/152585686375

[snailtime]

I think I might've actually found the brand of a different snail you posted before:

This one isn't really a toy or a figure but it's close enough to go into the collection. It's sold on Amazon as an aquarium decoration. It's made of silicone and has a suction cup on the underside. It looks like a land snail wearing the shell of a sea snail.

This one seems to be from the brand Aquatop which also makes other interesting little silicone creatures like a nautilus, leafy sea dragon and various lobsters and jellyfish

https://www.ebay.com/itm/152585686375

Oh wow, you're right! Thanks for identifying the brand and solving a small snaily mystery for me! 

[NSD Bashe]

no problem   

[snailtime]

Good news in the snail figure collecting world, Archie McPhee just released a new set of four "racing snails!" As said before, with almost all snail figures IDs are virtually impossible. However, these racing snails clearly appear to be Cuban painted snails, Polymita picta. That's mind-blowing to me that they'd pick such an exotic species and I love it.

P. picta has been depicted twice before, first as an impossible to find figure by Chinese company WPRSSG and secondly as a gashapon-inspired series by Nirvana Studios, another Chinese company. The previous instances of this species are fairly inaccessible and depicted morphs of black-skinned snails. Archie McPhee's figures conversely depict light-skinned snails which is the first time these morphs have appeared in figure form. The figures by Archie McPhee also possess shell patterns that haven't made an appearance in figure form yet.

The figures themselves are of a nice rubbery material and are the same mold as the "Crowned Critters" series snail they made earlier this year. On the underside of the figures is a small cart. Pull the cart back, let it go, and the snails race forward. Overall, a fantastic addition to the snail collection and I'm very happy to have these guys 

[snailtime]

This isn't a figure, but I wanted to share anyways. There's a fantastic artist named aleia who does photography of snails in miniature scenes. The scenes are made up of countless miniature handmade items and I've been in love with her art for many years now. To celebrate the release of her second art book, she decided to do a giveaway. The prize was a little handmade blister pack of snail-sized handmade miniatures (think Barbie accessory item set but for snails). Two winners were chosen out of many, many entries and I happened to be one of them! What are the chances?      I sent her a photo of my snail collection and she loved the snail and slug figures. She ended up sending me a ton of prints, a couple of bookmarks, and a sticker in addition to the blister pack! I'm so glad to be able to add so many cool items to the collection. I'm going to have to frame the prints    I'm so thankful for her generosity!