Arthur Cain made a wonderful statement somewhere......and I
paraphrase....most snails are nocturnal, while most malacologists are diurnal.

Snails are generally more active at night, but after a lot of collecting
I've come to realize that they are probably active when the "mood" strikes
them.  Not really....they are reacting to slight, perhaps immeasurable (for
us), changes in relative humidty/temperature.

But you don't have to collect active snails if you know where they hide.
Snails usually live in most stable microhabitat in any area.  Such as,
under or against rotten logs on the ground, the same for rocks.  Under leaf
litter.  In trees, they may be on the undersurfaces of the leaves, on the
trunk or in a hole.  Tropical limestone areas usually have more diverse
faunas, with higher densities, than the intervening areas.

Taking soil or leaf litter samples is imperative.  I've gotten up to 50
species in a single sample.  If you see dead snails on a limestone "shelf"
that's a good indication that a soil sample should be taken.  Take about a
quart, dry it in the sun and sort it under a microscope.

At any given site I spend about an hour walking around looking for the
bigger species in all their secret spots, taking soil samples along the
way.  Repeated visits to the same site rarely increases the number of
species by more than one or two.....

Happy hunting!  Kurt



At 10:10 PM 5/12/00 +0800, you wrote:
>Dear All,
>
>I would like to start collecting some land snails as there are plenty of
>plants, forest and jungle here.
>Can anyone out there help me to these questions
>
>1) Where to look out for land snails ?
>
>2) When is the most suitable time ?
>
>SIM from Sabah, Borneo.
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>