Schelpreparatie door “een minder kundige hand” bij een Gewone tuinslak Cepaea nemoralis

An accidently collected empty Cepaea nemoralis shell in North Yorkshire (United Kingdom) proved to be an interestingly repaired shell: some of the old shell material had been used to repair the hole. Such repairs are already known for a long time: the mantle layer of the snail can only repair the innermost nacreous layer of the shell, but pieces of the original shell can be reused if they are still fastened to the mantle. Possibly the damage of the shell was not produced by a predator but by a sheep grazing in the large quarry.