Snails are a plague for many hobby gardeners: They eat the well-groomed green and laboriously grown vegetables. There are some snails, too useful are.
The most important things at a glance
Snails don’t have a good reputation – at least not among hobby gardeners. But there are also beneficial insects among the snail species. This article explains what they are and what makes them so useful.
The tiger snail: That’s why it’s useful in the garden
The tiger snail (the biggest slug), also known as the Greater Slug or Tiger Slug, is a 15 to 20 centimeter long slug or slug. You can recognize the snail by its conspicuous, dark gray spots or leopard pattern and the light gray to brownish body. Incidentally, this is surrounded by a 13 to 15 millimeter long coat shield. This is a kind of long, calcareous mantle or protective shield, which still represents the remains of the snail shell that was once there.
Tiger snails can live up to three years if they are not killed beforehand by their predators, such as hedgehogs, or by poisons such as slug pellets.
The tiger slug is often found in forests, where it feeds on dead plants, fungi, carrion and the eggs of other slugs, among other things. The young animals in particular prefer a very protein-rich diet.
On the other hand, the tiger snail eats healthy and living plants hardly or not at all. The tiger snail is mainly nocturnal and rarely found during the day.
Already knew?
The mating behavior of the tiger snail is somewhat unusual. Because the molluscs are often hermaphrodites. This means that each snail can be both male and female. If two have found each other, they mate tightly entwined in the air hanging on a slime thread about 40 centimeters long.
The Roman snail: That’s why it’s useful in the garden
Another beneficial insect is the Roman snail. Because they get the building materials for their snail shell from their food, the mollusc loves calcareous soils. But the eggs of slugs are also part of the Roman snail’s diet. Plants are also part of the Roman snail’s diet, but here they mostly eat wilted and rotting plant parts that are soft and easy for the small animals to digest.
The Roman snail can grow up to five centimeters (shell size) and is a protected species.
You can do the beneficial insect good by leaving some cut off parts of the plant in the garden. The Roman snails gratefully use these.
So before you tackle the small invertebrates in your garden, you should pay attention to what species they are. Perhaps this is a beneficial insect that will help you with your gardening.
To protect the useful tiger snail and Roman snail as well as the other animals in your garden, you should not use slug pellets in your garden and instead use other methods of combating the unwelcome slug.
Problematic snails
The snails that are problematic for hobby gardeners include the following voracious snail species:
- the field slug (Deroceras reticulatum)
- die Gartenwegschnecke (Arion distincuts)
- the Spanish slug (Arion lusitanicus)
These are voracious slugs or slugs that like to attack plants.
