Field of Science  Name That Bug: Cornu aspersum  Cornu aspersum,
aka Helix aspersa, aka Cantareus aspersus, aka Cryptomphalus
aspersus.  Phew. The specimen illustrated is a "scalariform"
variant of the common garden snail, showing a developmental
abnormality where the whorls of the shell, instead of coiling
right up against each other, have grown spaced apart. (First ID
was by Blackbird, as well as resident malacologists Bronwen and
Aydin.) In case by some incredible turn of events you don't have
five thousand of them crawling around in your back garden, a
normal garden snail looks like this:  The special significance
of that particular scalariform specimen is that it is the type
specimen of Cornu copiae, type 'species' of the genus Cornu (the
image is the illustration that appeared with the original
description by Ignaz von Born in 1778). If the garden snail is
regarded as distinct enough from Helix pomatia, the edible
snail*, to be placed in a separate genus, Cornu is the oldest
genus name that has been app