Lots of hamillei

[stixandsnailsyork]

Lots of young all from my yellow shelled rodatzi, could anyone tell me what has happened.
The trio they are from have always been on their own and never mixed with any other snail species I have had them from very young so know for sure, Why have I got so many different colours from the normal yellow shelled rodatzi colour to very dark striped shells.
Take a look



Please help, Is it a good thing or a bad thing this has happened?
They were all pale shelled when i went on holiday with just the odd stripe on a few of them nowhere near as dark as they are.

[flutterby]

that is incredibly strange, i have 2 rodatzi and they look nothing like the stripey ones

[stixandsnailsyork]

Mine are all yellow shelled well all were yellow shelled till these.

Will find and upload a pic of what they looked like a few weeks ago

[stixandsnailsyork]

Here is a pic of what they looked like a couple of weeks ago they had the odd stripe but some of my juvs i have bought have had them but they have faded as they have grown. I would love to know what has happened.

[AlienSnail]

Ah they still look like the shells may fade......
Seeing the picture I would say that's not uncommon. They're not properly stripy like regular fulica.

Oh sorry! I was only looking at the bottom picture!!
hang on...................

[snailcrazy]

Quite a lot of mine were like that originally and then faded. The plain shelled ones also seem to have more of a peachy tint to their shells than the dark shelled hams when they were that size. But it's very strange how they develope stripes and them loose them.

[AlienSnail]

Following on looking at the earlier picture I would have felt confident that the stripes would fade. Looking at the later picture there are some strong stripes there, and I would think they will stay stripey.

I had two yellow shelled rodatzi that produced an entire batch of yellow shells - except for one little stripy fella. It would appear that with snails they still carry genes for the dominant characteristic, even when the recessive traits show, just that the dominent genes are switched off. Sometimes they can switch back on again. That is the theory. Snail genetics appear more complex than alot of other creatures.

[stixandsnailsyork]

Do you think they are carrying the dark shelled hamillei gene? They are very cute and like nothing i have ever seen.

I can't bring myself to rehome them.

I have another batch of babys from them will have to see how they turn out. ;D

[AlienSnail]

I would consider rehoming most of them though. But they are pretty

[stixandsnailsyork]

Will pop some of them on next time i list it wont be till next week now. x

[muddydragon]

any update on these guys? any strange colour changing again?

[stixandsnailsyork]

No they have all stayed about the same colours other than going a bid pinker. x