Good morning friends, here is one of the new Land Snails, Neosubulina harterti that is now calling our house, home. This particular species of snail has just appeared out of nowhere and after any given rain the driveway is just full of them. These are very small snails, this one here was less than half an inch in length with his body extended. My daily routine has been to get up early and carefully go outside with a flashlight and pick them all up and remove them from our walking areas and take them to a safer area away from foot traffic and the car. Land snails are gastropods, whose members also include aquatic snails (including marine snails) and slugs. The name means stomach-foot. This makes a degree of sense as the whole clan gets about by gliding on a muscular structure on the bottom of the abdomen, called the foot. The action that produces motion is a well-coordinated, wavelike contraction of muscles on the bottom of the foot that propels the gastropod smoothly forward over just about any surface. The action is not fast by human mobility standards but a determined snail can easily cover a meter in 5 minutes, so in the course of an evening a snail can travel the length of a football field and back. Land snails have several characteristics that make them easily identifiable. They have a single shell, usually coiled, that is a combination shield and humidor. The hard shell resists the efforts of predators and provides a haven during dry times. Snails are a moist gang, and if a snail cannot find a watering hole to renew its water supply, it will retreat to a protected nook, withdraw into its shell, and seal its shell to a solid surface. The snail will lapse into dormancy until rain, dew, or a garden sprinkler once again moistens the environment. This passive state, rather like hibernation but initiated by dry rather than cold, is called estivation. One indication that snails have been active is the telltale slime trail. Garden snails produce a layer of mucus on which they slide. This makes it easy to track their movement, but also saddles them with a reputation for being yucky. Most land snails have interesting projections on the fronts of their heads.  Technically they are tentacles, but “feeler” is a pretty good description of their function because they are touch sensitive. The two longer ones have light-sensitive organs at their tips, making them the snail’s version of eyes, although their function is limited to light perception rather than image generation. The shorter tentacles feel, taste, and smell the environment in the never-ending search for food and water, and in constant vigilance against dangers.

Good evening friends, here’s a real treat for you all tonight. This is MEGA RARE Slit-Shell, Perotrochus Gouyanus (Fischer & Bernardi, 1856) that was found by the Curasub at around 600 feet and successfully brought up alive! To our knowledge this is the first and or longest surviving slit-shell in captivity to date! We have had him in the Curacao Sea Aquarium under professional care now for almost two weeks and he is still doing great! This is by far one of the most rare and sought after mollusks on planet Earth, just his shell can fetch thousands of dollars to the right buyer or collector. I made a little arrow so you can easily see his little black eye on the right side of his head, the left eye is harder to see but it is there. The white stuff you see is poison that he is excreting as he was a bit alarmed and thought he was in danger. His shell is only around three inches wide by two inches tall. On my dive today I brought up more little rocks with encrusting sponges stuck to them for him to eat, we are still not 100% sure what he likes so we are trying everything! So once again you lucky folks get to see something that only a handful of scientists have ever seen and would probably kill to get to observe, it’s really one super cool animal!

The superfamily of Pleurotomariacae Swainson, 1840, are among the oldest surviving mollusca on Earth, having first appeared in the late upper Cambrian period over 500 million years ago. The Pleurotomariidae family includes all recent slit-shell species, first appeared in the Triassic period, some 200 million years ago. Since the discovery of the first living plearotomariid species, all have been commonly referred to as “living fossils” having previously thought to be extinct since the Tertiary. The slit-shell was first illustrated by a Japanese naturalist named Kimura Kenkado in 1755. The slit-shell family consists of top shaped shells characterized by a slit in the edge of the outer whorl. When threatened as you see here, the animal is capable of discharging a very toxic white solution! These mollusks like others do have a cool little circular operculum but it is not visible in this photo. The operculum is like a shield and uses it as a last defense to block entry into it’s delicate mantle area. Sixteen species are known to exist and all are found deep. Most extant species are in the genus Perotrochus and Entemnotrochus. The slit-shell is evolutionarily primitive and lives as a grazer. Sponges form the staple diet, although other food residues have been found in the esophagus and rectum of preserved animals. It is found in tropical and subtropical waters, typically at 300-3000 foot depths. Few people have actually observed a living slit-shell in it’s natural habitat, which can be easily explained by the nature of the habitat it is found in. The uniqueness and sheer beauty of these magnificent shells make them one of the classic rarities of the shell world.

Off to bed, have a great day tomorrow, Barry

Hi all, here is a new Mollusk from the deep found by the mini-sub www.substation-curacao.com last week at around 600 feet. It’s currently residing in my underwater “mollusk and crab housing development” in around 15 feet of water and seems to be doing great. I took this snail out for a little walk a few days on the sand and got to watch and learn how they move around and hunt for food. I first gently placed him or her on the sand as you see here and then backed off and just laid on the sand and waited. Moments later the foot started to unfold from inside the shell and ever so slowly two beautiful little black eyes (at the base of his tentacles) and a big proboscis popped out. The snail then started using it’s foot and mantle to dig itself under the sand, this whole process took around five minutes and then like magic he was gone! Snails like this never will be seen during the day above the sand or out in the open so they bury themselves as quickly as possible and then move or drag themselves under the sand. What was cool was that after he had buried himself the only thing still showing was the tip of his or her proboscis, I guess they need it to breath air with or something like that, it was cool. If anyone out there knows the name of this shell and creature please let me know.

 

I took half the day off today as tomorrow we are super busy with the sub. I finished my new driftwood project, re-caulked the bathroom shower, fixed Aimee’s flat tire on her bike, went shopping and met Stijn for a mountain bike ride at 5:00, it was a fast paced day!!

 

Sorry so short, still have tons of work to do on the computer. Be back tomorrow, Barry