When injured or badly irritated the snail produces a defensive froth of mucus that might repel some enemies or overwhelm aggressive small ants and the like.

When overwintering, Cornu aspersum avoids the formation of ice in its tissues by altering the osmotic components of its blood (or haemolymph); this permits it to survive temperatures as low as −5 °C (23 °F).

These mechanisms allow Cornu aspersum to avoid either fatal desiccation or hydration during months of either kind of quiescence.

The mouth is located beneath the tentacles, and contains a chitinous radula with which the snail scrapes and manipulates food particles.

[13][14][15][16] Other workers, including Ukrainian and Russian research teams, who regard H. aspersa and H. aperta as being in different genera, call the former Cryptomphalus aspersus.

[31][32] About 10 days after fertilisation, the snail lays a batch of on average 50 spherical, pearly-white eggs into crevices in the topsoil, or sheltered under stones.

[citation needed] Cornu aspersum is native to the Mediterranean region and its present range stretches from northwest Africa and Iberia, eastwards to Asia Minor and Egypt,[34] and northwards to Britain.

[35] Cornu aspersum is a typically anthropochorous species; it has been spread to many geographical regions by humans, either deliberately or accidentally.

It feeds on numerous types of fruit trees, vegetable crops, rose bushes, garden flowers, and cereals.

[46][47][48] Metacercariae of various species of the digenean genus Brachylaima have also been reported, and those have potential for being harmful to people because the adults can infect humans.

[48] However, the snails are capable of trapping cercariae (trematode larvae) in their shell, thus possibly reducing the intensity of infestation by parasites.

[49] The snail secretes thixotropic adhesive mucus that permits locomotion by rhythmic waves of contraction passing forward within its muscular foot.

[50] A separate type of wave motion that may be visible from the side enables the snail to conserve mucus when moving over a dry surface.

This type of wave passes backwards at the speed of the snail's forward motion, therefore having a zero velocity with respect to the ground.

[54] Cornu aspersum has a strong homing instinct, readily returning to a regular hibernation site.

Also in Lleida, a city of Catalonia (Spain), there is a gastronomic festival called L'Aplec del Caragol dedicated to this type of snail, known as bover, and attracts over 200,000 guests every year.

Caffeine has proven surprisingly toxic to snails, to the extent that spent coffee grounds (not decaffeinated) make a safe and immediately effective snail-repellant and even molluscicidal mulch for pot-plants, or for wherever else the supply is adequate.

[57] However, this is not without problems, as the decollate snail is just as likely to attack and devour other species of gastropods that may represent a valuable part of the native fauna of the region.

Cornu aspersum has gained some popularity as the chief ingredient in skin creams and gels (crema/gel de caracol) sold in the US.

[58] Secretions of Cornu aspersum produced under stress have skin-regenerative properties because of antioxidant superoxide dismutase and glutathione S-transferase (GSTs) activities.

Nine fractions of compounds with varying molecular weight were purified from the mucus and was tested against gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial strains.

[60] While further confirmatory research is still needed, potential benefits of the snail extracts or secretion filtrates have been also demonstrated in other disease models in mice, including protective effects against ethanol-induced gastric ulcer[61] and against the progression of Alzheimer's type dementia.