Chinese Mystery Snail
(Bellamya chinensis)
Biological Category
Aquatic Invertebrate
NY Legal Status
N/A
Species Type
Aquatic Invertebrate
DESCRIPTION
Chinese mystery snails are large, golf-ball-size snails with a “trapdoor” or operculum. These snails are typically light in color when young and then darken to greenish brown, brown, or reddish brown pigmentation as an adult.
Note: Research for these pages was generated from citations listed. References for specific statements available upon request.
Shell: The outer lip has a black coloring.; trap door; The shell is globose and has 6-7 whorls that are convex and have a clear suture. The Chinese mystery snail has a concentrically marked operculum, or “trap door,” that can close when water quality is not sufficient. The trap door is not present after death.
Color: Mature snails have banded olive green, greenish-brown, brown, or reddish-brown shells.
Size: 3cm-7cm in length
This species was sold in Chinese food market in San Francisco in the late 1800s; collected as early as 1914 in Boston. Probably released from an aquarium into the Niagara River between 1931 and 1942.
Cipangopaludina chinensis feeds non-selectively on organic and inorganic bottom material as well as benthic and epiphytic algae, mostly by scraping, but diatoms are probably the most nutritious food it ingests at sites in eastern North America.
It prefers lentic water bodies with silt, sand, and mud substrate in eastern North America, although it can survive in slower regions of streams as well.
The Chinese mystery snail can host parasites which infect and kill waterfowl. They form dense populations that can clog water intake screens.
){kind=link}