Pacific sideband snail (Monadenia fidelis)
This week’s critter puts the “crawl” in “crawly!” Meet the Pacific sideband snail (Monadenia fidelis) Oregon’s largest – and arguably prettiest – native snail.
As a native Oregonian, the Pacific sideband sports perfectly colored camo to blend in with our West of the Cascades forests.
While this camo helps them hide and avoid predation by raccoons, crows, shrews, mice and snakes, it also makes them stand out so they are easy to tell apart from non-native brown garden snails (Cornu aspersum).
If you’re lucky enough to find a Pacific sideband in your yard – don’t panic – and leave them to go on their snaily way. They are not garden pests.
The bulk of the sideband’s diet consists of fungi and lichen, so they help the nutrient cycle along. They may eat some live vegetation – they are fond of sword ferns – but as natives they prefer native fare and don’t go in for exotic landscaping plants.
Also we really do mean “lucky” enough to have in your yard. While sidebands are our largest native – with adult’s shells reaching up to one and one-quarter inch in diameter – they are still smaller than brown garden snails. Because of this size difference, and the brown garden’s adaptability (all our plants are non-native to them, so they may nibble on pretty much anything) brown gardens have pushed the sidebands out and away from inhabited areas.
Luckily (for the snails this time) sidebands are not yet a Threatened Species in the United States’ Pacific region. However, British Columbia, Canada has sidebands on its Concerned List.
Speaking of Pacific; sidebands really are specific to the Pacific coast. They can only be found west of the Cascades in Oregon. Their entire range only spans from southern British Columbia down the coast to just north of Redding, Calif.
Pacific sidebands can be found near creeks and streams in mixed forests. They need lots of leaf litter and/or pine needle ground cover as well as mosses for food, cover and moisture. They can sometimes be found on tree trunks, there’s lots of lichen and moss on our trees! They also like to hang out around the base of big leaf maples (Acer macrophyllum).
Sidebands can be found any time of year, though they usually aren’t out and about if it’s close to or below freezing. As mentioned above, a great time to find them is right after some rain as even these moisture loving mollusks can get too damp.
Fun fact: Big sidebands start out teeny. Our pictured baby sideband is just under one-quarter of the size they’ll eventually grow to. “Eventually” is key as it takes them two full years to reach their adult size. They can spare the time though because they can live up to six years.
All Pacific sidebands sport the rosy red to brick red body color, but their shell patterns can be quite variable. Shell color ranges from chestnut brown to dark rose and usually there is a dark band around the perimeter. Some sidebands have a yellow band as well. You can see there’s a lot of variation in our three pictured Pacifics.
So if you spot a mauvetastic snail with a stripey shell while you’re out and about enjoying our forested riparian areas – don’t fret you aren’t hallucinating – you’ve just met Oregon’s own Pacific sideband snail.
