1 kinds · tap one for a closer look
Peaceful; can eat soft plants.
This one is best kept on its own, or with its own kind.
Peaceful; can eat soft plants.
Check your local laws. No species-specific rules found except Illinois (USA): not on the Illinois Aquatic Life Approved Species List, so it may not be imported or possessed alive there without a permit. Check the rules where you live before you buy one, and never release it into the wild.
Algae and vegetables.
Tap a food to see what it is.
Hermaphrodite: every snail is both male and female, so there are no sexes to tell apart.
Common problems. Tap one to see the signs. This is a guide, not a diagnosis.
Egg-laying hermaphrodite · Easy
Egg-laying hermaphrodite that lays its eggs in clumps; in the wild egg production follows day length (eggs in spring, sperm in late summer).
Any two.
Any tank.
Warm water.
Clumps of 50-150 eggs; eggs develop faster as water warms above 10 °C and die at 36 °C.
Young snails graze.
A pond snail with a very inflated, ear-shaped shell opening. It has spread around the world as a hitchhiker on imported plants and via aquarium releases.
Linnaeus described this snail in 1758. Its wide, ear-shaped shell opening makes it easy to recognise, and it often arrives in aquariums by accident on plants.
First described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Named for 'Auricularia' refers to its ear-shaped shell.
10 facts checked with sources
Invertebrate (air-breathing freshwater pulmonate snail). Radix auricularia (Linnaeus, 1758), accepted; synonym Lymnaea auricularia. Hitchhiker "Radix" in tanks may also be R. balthica/Ampullaceana or Asian R. rubiginosa (found in the Singapore trade by Ng et al. 2016), which look similar.
MolluscaBase via WoRMS: Radix auricularia (AphiaID 248263, REST record)New value (legacy had none).
MolluscaBase via WoRMS: Radix auricularia (AphiaID 248263, REST record)Shell height. Typical 1.4-2.4 cm; maximum ~3 cm (NAS size field "to 35 mm height"). size-pick: legacy 2 cm kept because most snails reach about half the maximum.
USGS NAS / NOAA GLANSIS: Radix auricularia species profile (rev. 13 Jul 2026) · Wikipedia: Radix auricularia (cites USGS NAS and primary literature)Field records, not a husbandry range. NAS also says that in Great Britain it is restricted to hard water, so the low field pH figures may not mean it prefers acid water. Legacy 7-8.5.
USGS NAS / NOAA GLANSIS: Radix auricularia species profile (rev. 13 Jul 2026)New value.
USGS NAS / NOAA GLANSIS: Radix auricularia species profile (rev. 13 Jul 2026) · Wikipedia: Radix auricularia (cites USGS NAS and primary literature)Legacy "not visibly different" missed that it is a hermaphrodite.
USGS NAS / NOAA GLANSIS: Radix auricularia species profile (rev. 13 Jul 2026)Legacy 30-100. Egg-clump figure is from Wikipedia ref [30]; primary not fetched.
Wikipedia: Radix auricularia (cites USGS NAS and primary literature) · USGS NAS / NOAA GLANSIS: Radix auricularia species profile (rev. 13 Jul 2026)Only the US Great Lakes region regulations listed by NAS were checked.
USGS NAS / NOAA GLANSIS: Radix auricularia species profile (rev. 13 Jul 2026)