Appalachina sayana      

 

                                Reproduction

      

       Welcome to the Reproduction page of Appalachina sayana.  Although, I could not find much information pertaining the reproduction of the snail I was able to find information on reproduction of mostl snails as I would assume it would be similar. ENJOY!

 

       It is said that many terrestrial snails are hermaphrodites, which means that the snail possess both male and female sex organs.  Otherwise they are dioecious, meaning reproduction requires two individuals consisting of a female and male (Lee, 2002).  When the conditions are met, snails tend to mate on a monthly basis (Infoqis Publishing, Co., 2012).  We will also assume that Appalachina sayana is hermaphroditic. 

       During the process called copulation, bundles of sperms are exchanged to avoid self-fertilization (Hickman et all, 2009).  Before mating, many snails perform a type of courtship with each other (Hickman et all, 2009).  This could take up to hours even to a day. After fertilization, snails will typically lay their eggs in holes dug up by them or sometimes under logs (Hickman et all, 2009).  From there, the eggs will develop and hatch and the baby snails will live their life.

      Egg development usually takes 2 to 4 weeks. As soon as the eggs hatches the young snail will be an easy target for predators as their shells are weak at this stage (Infoqis Publishing, Co., 2012).  By eating their egg or other eggs, the snail will obtain calcium to harden up the shell(Infoqis Publishing, Co., 2012).  It typically takes 3 months for the snail to grow to complete form and about 2 years to get reach maturity for reproduction (Infoqis Publishing, Co., 2012).  The shell will grow as the snail grows (Infoqis Publishing, Co., 2012)

 

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about the Spike-Lip Crater click on any of the following:

Classification        Habitat        Recognition

 

 

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