Difference between pond and bladder snails

Difference between pond and bladder snails

I’ve recently noticed I have gotten a true pond snail and figured I’d show the difference between a bladder and pond snail. These two often get confused as the same thing, I believe most often the ones that we call ponds are actually bladders. The pond snail is from the family lymnaeidae whereas the bladder is from the family phsyidae. There are three primary differences between the two, the ponds have thicker triangular antennas, a right turned shell, and get larger(2-3”). The bladder has thinner whiplike antennas, a left turned shell, and grows to be around 1”. An additional note is that the ponds tend to have a more golden and clearer shell than the bladders.
A filter was applied to this image to help see the different shell directions better. The pond is on the right and the bladder on the left

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Here is a bladder with the darker shell and more whiplike antennas

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Here is a pond with the thicker antennas and clearer shell

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Platylover
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Excellently worded and easy to understand. Great photos!
Also known as tadpole snails, the bladder snails have solid brown or greenish brown, sometimes spotted shells. The way I distinguish them is by, as you mentioned, thick antennae on pond and thin antenna on bladder/tadpole.

The pictures are helpful, especially the last one. Great article!
  • Foxxway
  • 4.00 star(s)
Was told they were the same as well. Very informative!
  • Fanatic
  • 5.00 star(s)
Excellent! I think this is very helpful.
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