Helix albescens is a species of large air-breathing land snail from eastern Europe belonging to the family Helicidae.
Helix albescens is a relatively small Helix species with globular shell, which is whitish to cream-brown, usually with five reddish-brown bands of which especially the second and third may partly fuse. Umbilicus closed, apertural margins may be brown. Characteristic is a very large protoconch (the embryonal shell).[1] The animal is yellow, usually with a dark, brown back.
On the genital system, typical characters are a missing diverticulum of bursa copulatrix (gametolytic gland) and a very short flagellum.[2]
Helix albescens is distributed in southern Ukraine, southwestern Russia (Ciscaucasia) and the Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan).[3] The distribution of mitochondrial genetic lineages suggests that the species originates from Crimea.[4]
The species naturally occurs in shruby habitats (with Christ's thorn, blackthorn, hawthorn, etc.).[5]
As all stylommatophoran land snails, H. albescens is a hermaphrodite. It lays its eggs in small clutches in cavities dug 5-6 cm deep into a damp soil. Egg laying takes many hours, because laying one egg can takes as much as two hours. Recorded clutch size ranges between 6 and 25 eggs, with an average of 18 eggs. Oval eggs are large relative to the animal, with a maximum diameter of 6-11 mm.