NOW that James' slug has been identified, perhaps you can put a name to
my "Railtroad Snails". The snail is about almost two inches long,
colored a gray tinged with yellow. The shells are variable. They run
from yellow, through brown and various degrees of red. There is always a
dark brown or several dark brown lines of various widths circular in the
direction the shell is growing. There are multitudinous microscopic
spiral lines but that cut through the angular colors.
I call them "Railroad Snails" because the only ones I have found seem
to occur within 100 yards of a working or abandoned railroad. My
assumption would be that the snails may not be native to Ohio but have
been brought in with grain shipments at some time in the past. Dead
shells occur after a late fall frost. The live ones come out after a
rain like yesterday.
Art