from Helmut Nisters
Innsbruck-Austria
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
 
Larger and quite solid land-snails you can put for a moment in
really hot and boiling water (less than a minute), than you can
pick out the animal with a needle and then you can clean the
interiot of the shell with jetn of water. Then let it dry.
For smaller species as Vertiginidae and so on you can
put them first in alcolhol (at about 70%) for two days and then
let them dry.
Clausiliidae. For Clausiliidae you have to wait until they have
retired in their shell. Then the same procedding as with small
shells. Put them in alcohol for two days and later let them drying.
 
Bye bye yours Helmut
 
----------
> In a message dated 98-05-08 08:13:54 EDT, you write:
>
> << >Can any of you tell me the easiest way to clean land snails, from getting
>  >them dead to getting the animal out of the shell?  John Bernard
>  >[log in to unmask] >>
>
> John -- this was a thread about a year ago.  Precision scientific instruments,
 
> ultrasonic devices, chemical agents...you name it, the relative merits of all
> were well covered!!
>
> Take  the advice my Grandmother gave me when I was 5 years old, clutching my
> first shell:  "Put it out on an ant hill, dear, let them do the work!"
> Smaller shells?  Smaller ants!
>
> (Maybe you want to cover the shell/hill with a weighted box to keep other
> varmints away, but, hey, in an afternoon, a hungry colony of ants can do the
> work of a team of Conchologists!!)
>