IDing gender of Apple Snails

Apple snails include a lot of different types of snails - most common in "pets" being the mystery snail, also including the florida apple snail, cannas, and a lot of others.   applesnail.net is a great site for the most part for info on this group of snails, but a friend and I have been putting a lot of time into them and I thought I'd post a thread of ways to ID what gender your apple snails are.  

1 - Sometimes they will be nice and show you   my Fl Apple snails are much more friendly with this and I have a great picture of Moe showing what you are looking for with a male.



so you can see how far they need to lean out for you to see, most the time the penis will be behind the shield when you go to look, but the females do not have that shield.  

2- "door" shape
For females it is more round, for males more oval.




3 - witness breeding.


The male is on the top, the female will be going about her way.   He will be on her right from her back, since the left is the tube for breathing air.   If facing the glass you can SEE he's inserted his penis and even if you pick them up he will stay attached.   they do sometimes just ride eachother or crawl over eachother, but if locked together it is most likely a M/F pair.  

4 - eggs


well, it's a female!   This does not mean you for sure have a male, since they can store sperm, but you at least know of a female this way!

here is a florida apple snail female - if you look at male moe's photo with lack of modesty above, you can see she does not have a penis shield.   She wanted to be a bit more modest than him but still a good view with a little prompting.