A Case of Mistaken Snail Identity Leads to Irrational Freak Out in Houston, TX… Thanks Corporate News!
Big snail is beneficial, not bad.
By Kathy Huber
A case of mistaken identity sparked a false alarm this week when word spread that the giant African snail - a voracious mollusk that poses a potential health threat to humans - had come to town.
Turns out the big snail found in a Houston garden is beneficial, not bad. It was a rosy wolf snail, a predator of snails that devour garden plants, said Michael Warriner, invertebrate biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
The good snail’s story, like that of the bad snail’s, seems like science fiction. But it comes with a happy ending.
Photos of the suspicious snail tipped Warriner to its identity. Both the rosy wolf snail and the giant African snail have appendices for seeing and smelling. But the rosy wolf snail has a third set, oral lappets, that help it locate other snails’ slime. It then grabs its prey and rasps it with its radula, which works like a rough tongue, Warriner explained
In addition to its extra appendices, the rosy wolf snail matures to 2 or 3 inches, considerably smaller than the potentially 8-inch giant African snail, Warriner said…
(read more: Houston Chronicle)
(photos: T - Rosy Wolf Snail; B - African Giant Snail)
