2016/17 collections: (mostly terrestrial) snails

I was very happy to see that some of my snail enthusiasm seemed to have rubbed off last year. There were quite a few submissions of terrestrial mollusc collections, and most of them got 2:1s or Firsts. I hope I'm even more clued-up to help you this year, because my sister and I went on a weekend-long course about them. Oh yes, a woman who once fretted over dirtying her white trainers is now grubbing about in the earth looking for snails. I call this a success.

I could rabbit on about our marvellous tutor June Chatfield (who's been teaching the course for longer than I've been alive, believe it or not), and the amazing things we saw - huge Roman snails, a bright yellow semi-slug, tiny tiny full-grown Vallonias only a couple of millimeters across, snails with hairy shells... I could go on. If you come to see me, I probably will I'm afraid. But it will be more productive to look at some of the more successful collections in an effort to inspire you.

This one earned a First. If you can overlook the slightly distracting spottiness of the board it was highly praised for the way it securely accommodates various sizes of tube. The marker wrote, 'The labelling is exemplary' (click on the photo to look closer). There are 16 different species. I was interested to note that the markers hoped to see a range of examples where a single species shows variation - like the stripey Cepaeas. Of course, you'd have to submit shells in good condition, because the beautiful pink, yellow or brown colouration is in the outer layer of the shell, which gets rubbed off / faded by UV light in empty shells.

Here's an excerpt from the same student's notebook. Its narrative style and clear demonstration of the identification keys was approved of. You can see the page above includes a drawing with a scale: the marker mentioned that more annotations would have been good. They also mention 'technical detail'. So I think you might take that it's good to explain what features your snail (or other specimen) has, and perhaps why that qualifies it as belonging to a particular family, or suiting it to a certain habitat.

Here's another collection that was given an excellent mark - 76%. I do hope those vials had labels inside them (or can you imagine the dismay if they fell on the floor). I'm sure they did. The colour-coded plan on the inside of the lid certainly makes the family relationships evident.

The diary was praised for its level of detail, with good diagrams, photos and maps.