John C. writes: Whilst everyone else was heading off at high speed in the hope of tea and cake at Chastleton House on last Sunday’s walk from Adelstrop, I was lagging behind, turning over wet logs in the hope of finding (what else?) slime moulds. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one interested in them.
It’s always interesting looking under damp logs: you can find a whole host of microfauna – slugs, woodlice, centipedes, unidentifiable eggs. It’s really a different world, worth spending the time to look at.
There was, indeed, some slime mould sporangia (fruiting bodies) of Tricia decipiens, under one log that I turned over but also some things that I at first dismissed as the larvae of something unknown. Alison, however, pointed out that they were snails, in long (but only 10mm long) conical shells. There were several of them, one of which was advancing on the orange slime, clearly intent on eating it for tea! There’s no accounting for taste. It perhaps helps to explain why it’s quite difficult to find slime – the slugs have eaten them all.
Some later research on the internet, especially, Naturespot (always a useful resource) let me identify the snails as Two-toothed door snails, Clausilia bidentata, with a fair degree of confidence. Until today I had no idea that there are more than a hundred species of snail in the UK. Life gets richer.
John Cobb 18 March 2024
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