aspersum is one of the species that uses love darts during mating. Individuals mate repeatedly between oviposition events and can store viable allosperm for 4 years. 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 or the like. In a year it may lay approximately six batches of eggs. The size of the egg is 3 mm. In captivity snails can become sexually mature within 3.5 months of hatching, before they stop growing. Distribution Cornu aspersum is native to the Mediterranean region and its present range stretches from northwest Africa and Iberia, eastwards to Asia Minor and Egypt,<ref>Commonwealth of Australia. 2002 (April) [http://www.daff.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/24702/fin_egyptian_citrus.pdf Citrus Imports from the Arab Republic of Egypt. A Review Under Existing Import Conditions for Citrus from Israel] . Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Australia. Caption: Gastropods, page 12 and Appendix 2.</ref> and northwards to Britain.Cornu aspersum is a typically anthropochorous species; it has been spread to many geographical regions by humans, either deliberately or accidentally. Nowadays it is cosmopolitan in temperate zones, and has become naturalised in regions with climates that differ from the mediterranean climate in which it evolved.Pfleger, V. & Chatfield, J. (1983). A guide to snails of Britain and Europe. Hamlyn, London. Its passive anthropochory is the likeliest explanation for genetic resemblances between allopatric populations. Its anthropochorous spread may have started as early as during the Neolithic revolution some 8500 BP. Such anthropochory continues, sometimes resulting in locally catastrophic destruction of habitat or crops. Its increasing non-native distribution includes parts of Europe, such as Bohemia in the Czech Republic since 2008. It is present in Australia, New Zealand, North America, Costa Rica and southern South America. It was introduced to Southern Africa as a food animal by Huguenots in the 18th century, and into California as a food animal in the 1850s; it is now a notorious agricultural pest in both regions, especially in citrus groves and vineyards. Many jurisdictions have quarantines for preventing the importation of the snail in plant matter. A number of North African endemic forms and subspecies have been described on the basis of shell characters. Cornu aspersum aspersum, in French commonly called the "petit gris", is native to the Mediterranean area and Western Europe, but has been spread widely elsewhere. The name Cornu aspersum maximum has been applied to a large form