Achatina immaculata Verwirrung ;-)

[Geli]

Nachricht von Paul (von petsnails):

I stumbled across some posts of yours on http://schnecken-forum.de
regarding immaculata. It is confusing but I have done a page about it which explains it all:

http://www.petsnails.co.uk/index.php?ac ... lata#start

There seemed to be some disbelief about a few things so I thought I'd mention it to make it clear in case you wished to pass the info on.

The stuhlmanni we have aren't stuhlmanni. This is proven by their smooth nepionic whorls (whorls formed in the egg). This makes them a Lissachatina not an Achatina like stuhlmanni. Stuhlmanni have granulated (like rice) neopionic whorls. I have studied this myself under 20x magnification. The pink columella isn't conclusive in this case because I do not have enough information on real stuhlmannu, but it all adds up, including the crossbreeds which just happen to be with panthera/immaculata.

Archachatina dimidiata are a real species, coming from South Africa and growing to about 8cm. They are still abundant. But this is where the mix-up must have originated. They look like the two-tone immaculata we have.

Achatina dimidiata was an old name for Achatina balteata var. infrafusca and is no longer relevant.

The two-tone immaculata are identified by the South African Malacology Society.

Albert Mead found panthera and immaculata to be sexually identical. In snail terms this means they are the same species and immaculata wins because the name was pronounced first.

Regards
paul