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Euglandina rosea (Férussac, 1821) Group Mating |
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During late November, 2019 six adult Euglandina
rosea were taken into captivity from a location adjacent to St.
Johns Bluff Road at the Interstate 295 overpass, Jacksonville, Duval
County, Florida. Each specimen was placed in its own makeshift
terrarium for safe keeping. Placing two or more Euglandina in
a single terrarium usually results either in a mating frenzy or with
one of the snails devouring another. Dissimilar size of the
specimens usually leads to the latter outcome. On 12/3/2019 all six snails were placed together in a much larger terrarium. When exposed to additional members of their species the previously inactive snails suddenly became active and quickly formed two mating groups with three snails in each group. The smaller of the three snails in the one group demonstrated little interest in mating and subsequently crawled away (top image below). The middle image below shows the second mating group comprised of three snails. Approximately two hours later the two mating groups assembled on the side of the terrarium into a single mating mass of five (bottom image below). The smaller of the six snails, which earlier had showed little interest in mating, did not rejoin the newly constituted larger mating group. Field observations during 2019 indicate that in northeast Florida the primary mating months for Euglandina are January and February. As an example, during January a total of 18 mating events were observed with nine such events observed during February. Observations during past years indicates that mating also occurs during November and December. No mating events were ever observed between March and October. |
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