SNAILS UNLEASHED
The rosy wolfsnail (Euglandina rosea) is a pinkish terrestrial snail that can be found around the world, including the US, India, Japan, Madagascar and China. Using chemical receptors in their antennae-like lips, rosy wolfsnails can track other snails through their mucus trails. When a wolfsnail encounters another snail, it will quickly begin sucking at the shell opening, hoovering out the gelatinous snail within. Some wolfsnails don’t even bother to navigate around the shell and devour the entire snail whole, shell and all. In 1995 they were introduced to the Hawaiian Islands by the Hawaii State Department of Agriculture to tackle the growing threat of giant African snails, another introduced species. Although the wolfsnails were adept at hunting giant African snails, they also had a taste for Hawaii’s native snail species. The 21 species of Carelia snails, endemic to Hawaii’s fourth-largest island Kauai, are now believed to be extinct.
LOVE AT FIRST BITE
The insect world is filled with weird
