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Life History

Florida tree snails exhibits an annual cycle having active and inactive periods.  They are most active when moisture levels are high, which occurs during Florida's wet season. Snails hatch, feed, grow, mate, and lay eggs during this time. During the dry season, they seal themselves to tree trunks and branches to conserve vital body moisture and are in a state of inactivity, called aestivation.  They may temporarily emerge from aestivation, however, if rains occur during the dry season.

Shell growth starts and stops with the wet and dry seasons, producing a visible annual growth scar, called a "varix", much like a growth ring on a tree. One can use these scars to determine a snails age if care is taken not to count minor scars resulting from broken shells or seasonal spurts of growth.

Florida tree snails live four or five years, on average, but some have been recorded at nine years.  They reach sexual maturity in two to three years.  Like many snails, Liguus are hermaphroditic, meaning they have both male and female sex organs.

Courtship and mating occur in the late summer or early fall. Three to four weeks later, the female burrows up to the length of her shell into the leaf litter of the hammock floor and lays up to 50 elliptical, pea-sized eggs.  The young snails, called buttons, hatch at the beginning of the rainy season.  Adults also emerge from aestivation at this time and the cycle begins anew.