This is a guide to the land snails and slugs of Indiana. It is designed to serve as an educational resource for the casual or serious observer (from iNaturalist, for example) to know the nature of snails and identify the species or genus of the most likely encountered shells.
For completeness, a broader list of snails and their identification and description is also presented - but based only on the information at hand. For a true consideration of Indiana snails, hundreds of more collections and thousands more snails would need to be collected and processed and museum collections would need to be evaluated - a set of tasks beyond the scope of this effort.
These are the major features of this Guide:
1. a brief introduction to the biology of land snails in About Land Snails
2. a brief description of a few land snails that you might most commonly encounter on a hike or walk in a state park, forest, or other woodland area with the information needed to identify them if not to species, at last to type in A Quick Land Snail Guide.
3. A deeper look at land snail and slug biology and ecology in Land Snails and Slugs - with links to
an explanation of snail structure, the anatomy of land snails and shells needed for identification
an identification key to the major groups of Indiana land snails and, when possible, to an individual species. While you will end up with individual species in many cases, it will not always possible to identify a specimen to species - but only to type or kind of snail (usually the genus). This key is more complex than the information in the Quick Land Snail Guide.
a list of species - a list of land snail species or groups likely to be found in Indiana with descriptions, images (or links to images) and state and USA distribution maps.
a section on non-native Indiana species
4. a "how to photograph snails for identification" guide and technical resources for land snails and slugs, as well as aquatic snails in Resources
5. a brief intro with comments on structure and a key to major aquatic groups with a species list in About Aquatic Snails
6. a list of Kansas snails with distribution maps based on my former life as Professor of Biology from Pittsburg (KS) State University. I authored a "Pocket Guide to Kansas Land Snails" (https://gpnc.org/pocket-guides/) in my previous (working) life.
7. I am now retired and living in southern Indiana. I developed this web site to serve as an educational resource for the casual or serious observer (from iNaturalist, for example) to know the nature of snails and identify the most likely encountered shells. I post on iNat as "portageejoe" - https://www.inaturalist.org/people/1293392). You can contact me through there or at jarruda@pittstate.edu.