Archachatina puylaerti are a fairly newly described species. They were first described by Dr. Mead in 1998.
They are found in Togo and Benin, and look very much like Archachatina degneri, which are only found in Ghana. There is no distinctive feature to differentiate between these two species, unless the collecting locality is known, or the snails are dissected.
There are hints in the overall appearance of the shell though, puylaerti usually have more elongated, less-ventricose shells than degneri, the body colour of puylaerti is usually slightly darker than that of degneri, the shell is also usually darker in puylaerti.
There is an albino form of this species, pictures of an albino Archachatina puylaerti are labelled elsewhere online as a fictional species, Archachatina puylepti, this is simply a spelling error, which has caused a lot of confusion, due to one of the sites where this error is found being one of the prominent sites for snail pictures, especially with new keepers, and so there has been many requests for this “species,” no reference can be found for A. puylepti anywhere, because it doesn’t exist. Other albino-bodied Archachatina species, such as Archachatina marginata var. ovum and suturalis has also been sold wrongly as “Archachatina puylepti” in the past, though this doesn’t seem to happen anymore.
Archachatina puylaerti need very warm, humid conditions in captivity. Temperatures of around 26-30c should be maintained, a heatmat can be placed at the back of their housing, not underneath it, covering around 1/3 of their housing.
A deep substrate of moist coir, soil and/or rotting leaves can be used as substrate, moss can be used to raise humidity. Limiting the airflow, and using a water bowl can also help raise the humidity. Under ideal conditions the snails should be active throughout the day. Breeding and hatching the eggs of this species is reported to be fairly easy in captivity, the eggs, which are around 2cm, would need to be kept in a constant warm, humid environment, and hatch after several weeks.
