page_title: Land snail
section_title: Oceania
hierarchical_section_title: Land snail / Snails as human food / Oceania
caption_attribution_description: English: Île des Pins snails (Placostylus fibratus) cooked with garlic butter, served at restaurant La Pirogue at Le Meridien Île des Pins.
context_page_description: A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. Land snail is the common name for terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells. However, it is not always easy to say which species are terrestrial, because some are more or less amphibious between land and fresh water, and others are relatively amphibious between land and salt water.
  Land snails are a polyphyletic group comprising at least ten independent evolutionary transitions to terrestrial life. The majority of land snails are pulmonates that have a lung and breathe air. Most of the non-pulmonate land snails belong to lineages in the Caenogastropoda, and tend to have a gill and an operculum. The largest clade of land snails is the Cyclophoroidea, with more than 7,000 species. Many of these operculate land snails live in habitats or microhabitats that are sometimes damp or wet, such as in moss.
  Land snails have a strong muscular foot; they use mucus to enable them to crawl over rough surfaces and to keep their soft bodies from drying out. Like other mollusks, land snails have a mantle, and they have one or two pairs of tentacles on their head.
context_section_description: In New Caledonia, Placostylus fibratus (French: bulime) is considered a highly prized delicacy and is locally farmed to ensure supplies.  It is often served by restaurants prepared in the French style with garlic butter.
caption: Bulime cooked in garlic butter in Ile des Pins, New Caledonia, species Placostylus fibratus
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