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Sticker of Cuban painted snail
Bug card No. 0375 of 1,500

Cuban painted snail

Polymita picta
Eats: Fungus and mouldSnails, slugs and wormsRainforests and junglesNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The Cuban painted snail has one of the most colourful shells in the world. It is often bright yellow with a white stripe, but it can come in many other colours too, as if someone painted each one by hand. It lives up in the trees of eastern Cuba.

Fun fact: this one is not an insect at all, it has no legs! But kids find it on every bug hunt, so it lives in Bug Wiki too.
Lives in
Only in eastern Cuba, in coastal forests
Length
2 cm (0.79 in)
the size of the shell
Top speed
about 0.02 km/h (0.01 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It is the snail that is in danger, because people collect its pretty shells.
What does it eat?
It scrapes lichen, moss and thin fungus layers off tree bark and leaves.
For real!Photo of Cuban painted snail
Picture by H. Zell. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Cuban painted snail about 2 cm long (0.79 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 3 grains of rice in a rowneeds 3 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Cuban painted snail compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The colour of its shell depends on what it eats.

2

It is endangered because people collect its shells to make jewellery. Since 1943 it has been protected by law in Cuba.

3

In the dry season it goes to sleep and waits for the rain to come back.

4

It lives for about 15 months.

5

Every snail is both a mum and a dad at the same time, but it still needs a partner to have babies.

you asked

Most asked questions about Cuban painted snail

?Why is the Cuban painted snail so colourful?

Its shell colour depends on its food. The many colours might also confuse animals that want to eat it.

?Is the Cuban painted snail endangered?

Yes. So many were collected for their shells that it is now protected in Cuba.

?Where does the Cuban painted snail live?

Only in the forests of eastern Cuba, up in the trees.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Polymita picta
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Cepolidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Cepolidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
Oriente tree snail

Where the facts come from

  1. Polymita picta (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by H. Zell. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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