Over 7,000 ‘glow-in-the-dark' snails return to island homes - ZSL
%20ZSL.jpg "Rare Partula snail on leaf with blue glowing spots due to UV paint.")
Thousands of 'glow-in-the-dark' snails have been reintroduced to French Polynesia as part of global conservation programme to save the snails from the brink of extinction.
The annual reintroduction of zoo-bred Extinct in the Wild and Critically Endangered Partula snails - including from our London and Whipsnade Zoos - saw over 7,000 snails returned to four islands, making it the largest release of the group of finger-nail sized snail species and subspecies to date.
Before release, conservationists dotted the shell of each snail with a small dab of white UV reflective paint, which glows blue under UV light. As the snails are most active at night, the paint helps the team find released snails and monitor the recovery of the species.
During the releases, the team discovered an unmarked, juvenile Partula varia – making it the first wild-born member of this reintroduced snail species to be spotted in over 30 years. This discovery is proof that the Partula species is not only surviving on their native island of Huahine, but that they are successfully breeding – a momentous milestone for the programme.
The exciting find is a promising sign for recovery of the species and comes less than a year after the programme saw the reclassification of another Partula snail species – Partula tohiveana – from Extinct-in-the-Wild to Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the global assessment of extinction risk.
ZSL’s Senior Curator of Invertebrates, Paul Pearce-Kelly, who leads the international Partula conservation programme, said: “This progress is decades in the making. We are not only celebrating the largest release of Partula snails in history, but also the results of over 30 years of dedicated work by conservation zoos and the French Polynesian government to enable the recovery of these precious snails in the wild. Wildlife globally faces unprecedented challenges, and every single species is a precious part of the interconnected web of ecosystems that we all rely on - so today’s news is not only a moment of hope for these snails, but for nature and people globally.”