Common Bladder Snail - Physa fontinalis

Height: 7 to 12 mm. Breadth: 4 to 7 mm. Dextral (coils to the left so the mouth is on the left). The shell is thin and fragile, glossy and transparent, and a pale horn colour. It is more or less oval in outline, and is formed of 4 - 5 swollen whorls, the last of which forms more than three-quarters of the shell height. The spire is short, with a blunt apex. The aperture is wide and oval, and the mouth edge is very thin and brittle.

It is found in streams, rivers, ditches, canals, ponds and lakes, throughout most of the British Isles, usually on leaves of water weeds or amongst the stems.

All year round

Widespread and common in Britain.

Common in Leicestershire and Rutland.