Relationships among Phenotypic Traits of Giant African Land Snails in Western region of Nigeria

The relatedness among three populations (A. achatina, A. fulica and A. marginata) of giant African land snails, a highly relished source of protein in West Africa was studied. Three hundred (300) matured snails consisting of one hundred (100) each of A. achatina, A. fulica and A. marginata collected randomly from three locations in Western region of Nigeria were used to evaluate the relationships among phenotypic traits. The results of the mean body weight and shell traits (body weight, shell length, shell width, shell ‘mouth’ length and shell ‘mouth’ width) studied showed highly significant differences (P< 0.05). Phenotypic correlations among the pairs of traits showed positive, strong and highly significant (P< 0.01) correlation coefficients (rp). Similarly, the clustering of the phenotypic traits also showed that the three populations were divided into two major groups with A. marginata being more closely related to A. achatina than A. fulica. The body traits studied was grouped into one principal component with a total variability of 98.75%. This study revealed phenotypic differences among the species of snails used.