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Archachatina marginata
Archachatina are another subspecies of the Achatinadae group of snails (see classification page) and can be recognised in several ways. The most obvious is that they usually have a rounded or blunt tip to the shell. Several Archachatina species have a distinctive red, orange or pink tip to the shell too. They also lay eggs which, compared to Achatina species eggs, are massive! Archachatina marginata is usually referred to as "Achatina marginata" by websites and books on snails, but Archachatina is the correct classification. From now on on this page I shall refer to Archachatina marginata as the "margie" - an easy abbreviation!
Margies grow exceptionally large, although usually not as big as tiger snails (Achatina achatina). They have been known to reach 20cm in shell length (although as with all "maximum" sizes, this is unusual) and adult specimins are consistently bigger than average sized fulica specimins. They have dark shells, sometimes with yellow striped patterns, sometimes with variations on a very dark, almost black, brown. The tip of the shell has a pink or occasionally orange hue to it making the snail fairly distinctive. Ocasionally but rarely this colouration may be missing. The body colour can vary greatly, from grey to black, but the most common is a very dark, nearly black, with a lighter underside to the foot. The tail has a v-shaped raised area and the flesh is textured around the tail and the edges of the foot. Juveniles, while they usually have the dark body of an adult, often have clear or beige shells for a long period before developing darker shells. These juvenile shells are often patterned with brown stripes. Likewise the pink or orange tip does not develop immediately. The shape of the juvenile snail is different to that of, for example, the fulica, it has no pointed tip, - the shell begins to protrude into the classic conical shape as the snail grows more coils, but the tip itself remains rounded and not pointed.
They can live for 7 or more years, though average is perhaps around 5, and require roughly the same care as fulica, though they will respond faster to variations in their environment, meaning that, for example, large temperature fluctuations would adversely affect margies faster than it would fulicas.
Margies lay massive eggs, which can be speckled with dark blotches, or a plain creamy white/yellow. They lay fewer eggs than the Achatina species, but the exact amount can very from 1-2 to 30-40. They burrow to lay, in the same manner as all other Achatinadae.
Breeding margies is an issue on which there is much divided opinion. The general opinion is that they are difficult to breed as the eggs appear to be very sensitive to handling and disturbance, and there is a higher rate of non-viable eggs and of death among the young. However, many people find that their margies breed with no problems at all.
Generally the advice would be to leave the eggs where they are layed rather than removing them, and to perhaps place an inverted glass over them to protect them from disturbance by the adult snail. If you do remove them, take a large amount of the substrate from around them as well, trying not to disturb the eggs at all as you lift the substrate out. The eggs require a nice warm temperature to hatch, around 25 degrees seems to work well. Because the eggs are so much bigger than those of Achatina species, as one would expect, the babies are larger too, and therefore can be distinguished easily from fulica babies, although it may be easy to confuse them with babies of other Archachatina species.
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