Land Snails and Slugs of the Pacific Northwest

Book covered each species in detail with helpful range maps. Even covers common species in the Northern Great Basin.

A good book that could be a lifesaver in a famine.

This book is a huge dichotomous key and it's legit! I identified a Helix gardensnail using it. It also comes with advice on how to collect snails and where to find them. Would reccommend to any gastropod enthusiast living in the pacific northwest.

I was really looking forward to having this as a field guide, however, I was very disappointed. The front of the book implies there would be alive Photos of the snails. There is a lot of information written on the snails but the photos are plain photos of shells. The photos of the slugs were better but there wasn’t enough to make it worth keeping the book just for the slug portion as it was small compared to the bulk of the book itself. I appreciate the authors research and information, it’s just not something my family would sit and read through.

Mollusk field guides are entirely lacking in the United States. The public is blissfully unaware of the beauty beneath their feet, and often disdain snails and slugs as pests. Nothing could be further from the truth. They process surficial organic wastes and debris that otherwise would not become soil so quickly, stifling the growth of forests, to name but one small example. Indeed, from the perspective of species diversity and morphology, the Pacific Northwest possesses the highest diversity next to the Eastern US. The country is more difficult to access, and doubtless countless species await discovery. Having a book like this in the home will contribute to the discovery process as distinguishing snails and slugs is fraught with difficulty due to the near absence of keys based on external morphology, primarily because differences are highly subtle and require intense study. If there is one area I wish was improved, it was the presentation of live animals. Some species are photographed and presented well, but much of the book presents museum specimen shells. This is doubtless due to the relative scarcity of many species, requiring a great deal of time and some luck. It is a solid achievement nonetheless. Perhaps a future edition will have more in the way of animal photos, but the key is indispensable and quite usable even for an interested layperson.

My 9year old daughter loves this book. She is a huge mollusk enthusiast and regularly refers to this book for caring for her pet slug and snails and for her independent research.

Fantastic resource! I work in the forests of the PNW surveying for mollusks and found this book to be very helpful and up-to-date. It is not a comprehensive guide, but it is a great start.

Good reliable resource for those interested in land snails

Full of information.