The unusual reproductive habits of a giant, carnivorous New Zealand snail had been as soon as shrouded in thriller. Now footage of the snail laying an egg from its neck has been captured for the first time, the nation’s conservation company mentioned Wednesday.
What appears like a tiny hen’s egg is seen rising from an opening under the pinnacle of the Powelliphanta augusta snail, a threatened species endemic to New Zealand.
The video was taken at a facility on the South Island’s West Coast, the place conservation rangers making an attempt to save lots of the species from extinction have cared for a inhabitants of the snails in chilled containers for almost twenty years.
The circumstances within the containers mimic the alpine climate of their solely former habitat — a distant mountain they had been named for, on the West Coast of the South Island, that has been engulfed by mining.
Lisa Flanagan from the Department of Conservation, who has labored with the creatures for 12 years, mentioned the species nonetheless holds surprises.
“It’s remarkable that in all the time we’ve spent caring for the snails, this is the first time we’ve seen one lay an egg,” she mentioned in an announcement.
Like different snails, Powelliphanta augusta are hermaphrodites, which explains how the creatures can reproduce when encased in a tough shell. The invertebrate makes use of a genital pore on the suitable aspect of its physique, slightly below the pinnacle, to concurrently change sperm with one other snail, which is saved till every creates an egg.
Each snail takes eight years to achieve sexual maturity, after which it lays about 5 eggs a yr. The egg can take greater than a yr to hatch.
“Some of our captive snails are between 25 and 30 years old,” mentioned Flanagan. “They’re polar opposites to the pest garden snail we introduced to New Zealand, which is like a weed, with thousands of offspring each year and a short life.”
The dozens of species and subspecies of Powelliphanta snails are solely present in New Zealand, principally in rugged forest and grassland settings the place they’re threatened by habitat loss.
They are carnivores that slurp up earthworms like noodles, and are a few of the world’s largest snails , with outsized, distinctive shells in a variety of wealthy earth colours and swirling patterns.
The Powelliphanta augusta was the middle of public uproar and authorized proceedings within the early 2000s, when an power firm’s plans to mine for coal threatened to destroy the snails’ habitat.
Some 4,000 had been eliminated from the location and relocated, whereas 2,000 extra had been housed in chilled storage within the West Coast city of Hokitika to make sure the preservation of the species, which is gradual to breed and would not adapt effectively to new habitats.
In 2011, some 800 of the snails by chance died in a Department of Conservation fridge with defective temperature management.
But the species’ gradual survival continues: In March this yr, there have been almost 1,900 snails and almost 2,200 eggs in captivity, the conservation company mentioned.
Published – May 12, 2025 04:05 pm IST
