Since 1600 , Pacific island land escargot have been plagued with extinctions , facing more species rub - outs than get word in any other group of creature on Earth . Their luck , however , is changing as a big discovery recently print in the journalZooKeysunveiled a new coinage of Hawaiian land snail , and it ’s tiny .
Auriculella gagneorum , a minute of arc snail that is dwarfed by a toothpick , was discovered in Oahu ’s Waianae Mountains , constitute the first young metal money of a endure Hawaiian country escargot described in 60 yr . The species sports a surprising variety of shell types , with characteristic confect stripe that make it resemble an old - fashioned barbers sign . The petite mollusc " bring that small glimmer of hope that this is n’t all a cheerless story , " order the sketch ’s lead author Norine Yeung , malacology curator at the Bishop Museum , in astatement .
It might seem like a lot of excitement for an creature that spans less than two - tenth of an inch in length , but even miniature land snail play a crucial theatrical role as decomposers and fungivores in Hawaii ’s ecosystems , essentially , as Yeung describes them , " our first recyclers . ”
The victory came as part of a 10 - class , with child - musical scale survey of land escargot that focused on 1,000 sites through Hawaii . Field discoveries were combined with observations from the Bishop Museum ’s collection of land snails , unidentified specimen within which span back as far as the 1940s , and were compare to modern sample to get an idea of what they were look at .
Now thatA. gagneorumhave been disclose , the researchers on the survey require to grow their universe and have choose some snails to be incorporated into Hawaii ’s captive training programme . Their name pays homage to the recent Hawaiian naturalists Betsy and Wayne Gagne , who were " powerhouses for conservation , " Yeung read . " They cared about the whole ecosystem , whether it was a midget little glitch or plants or one of Hawaii ’s magnetic , beautiful timberland birds . "
Hawaii once teemed with res publica snails , but its eclectic gathering of around 750 species has now shrunk by more than half . These vulnerable animals are hard affected by home ground loss and invasive mintage such as rats and Chamaeleon . Anunfortunate attemptto regenerate some disruptive species of snail saw the carnivorous rosy skirt chaser snail bring in in as a biologic pesterer control for predatory African land snail , but the rosy-cheeked wolf escargot connect the African behemoth in chowing down on native mintage .
With such a troublesome past , it ’s all the more significant that even the smallest of dry land escargot encounter the pomp and ceremony they deserve . " This is a well-chosen story where we discovered a snail that is still around , " Yeung said . " There are so many things in our solicitation that we can no longer find in the state of nature . But in this snail ’s case , we can finally put a name to it and key it , which is huge for the preservation of this species . "
