Sea slug (Phyllodesmium macphersonae).

a slug (perhaps enjoying) a moist mushroom

Slugging It Out

A Gastropod mollusc slugging it out with a daisy in the conservatory. Photo credit: Eleanor Chua.

the dusky nembrotha (nembrotha kabaryana) | source

Fenton Vaseline Glass Snail, Vintage Yellow Opalescent Uranium Glass

A sea hare (蓝斑背肛海兔; Notarchus leachii cirrosus Stimpson) by the South China Sea. The purple in the water is ink.

Taxonomy Tournament: Gastropods

Strombidae. This family is made up of true conches, which have long eye-stalks and move in a leaping motion, and are used by humans as food, or their shells for decoration.

Conidae. This family is made up of cone snails, which hunt prey by launching their tooth from their mouth like a harpoon and injecting them with venom.

Y'all know I'm a sucker for endangered species reintroduction stories, right? Especially when it's not a charismatic megafauna being highlighted. So of course I was excited when this headline crossed my dash.

The magnificent ramshorn (what a great name!), also known as Planorbella magnifica, is a tiny snail endemic to ponds and other quiet waterways in North Carolina's lower Cape Fear River basin. In fact, they were only known from four sites in the region. Due to plummeting numbers in its limited habitat, some of the last of these snails were removed from the wild to create an intensive captive breeding program. (It really doesn't take much to keep a snail happy in captivity once you figure out what conditions it needs.) The last wild individual was observed twenty years ago, and it is considered to be extinct in the wild.

That is, until now. Two thousand of these little reddish snails were released into a safe pond in Brunswick County. Researchers are using this as a way to observe how well these captive-bred snails adapt to their historic habitat, including successful reproduction. If all goes well, we can hope to see more reintroductions of these native mollusks back into their original range.

We nature nerds are biased, because we think everything in nature is awesome (yes, I'm even an apologist for mosquitoes!) So of course we get excited when a bunch of rare little snails get a second chance, because we understand how crucial each species is to its ecosystem. It can be tougher sometimes to sell the importance of this to the general public, who may question why it would be such a big deal for one snail species to go extinct. That's why I think it's so important for us to keep sharing our knowledge and--perhaps even more importantly--our enthusiasm for all these amazing beings. Keep being cheerleaders for critters like these snails, and your enthusiasm may end up being contagious!

Invertober Day 30 - leopard slug

Slug Activities

Submitted for classification by @plesiosaurys

Baby sea slug, Chromodoris willani.

Caribbean Leatherleaf Slug.

30/07/23 - Gastropoda: Sarasinula plebeia

QLD:WET - El Arish, remnant vegetation on farmland

shaun the sheep nudibranch (costasiella kuroshimae) | source

A desirable flabellina nudibranch (Coryphellina exoptata) in Luzon, Phillipines

by Robin Gwen Agarwal