Partula Snail breeding station 2011

Nanook
Partula snails have been bread for years in captivity, do you know if they are all the same species? and if any have ever been returned to the wild? Maybe lintworm could tell us if he sees this

@ dean, about your reintroduction question see :http://www.zoochat.com/65/partula-snail-re-introduction-338515/?highlight=partula

dean said:

Nanook
Partula snails have been bread for years in captivity, do you know if they are all the same species? and if any have ever been returned to the wild? Maybe lintworm could tell us if he sees this

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There are several different species kept in UK zoos - over the years I've seen:

Partula affinis
Partula clara
Partula dentifera
Partula faba
Partula gibba
Partula hebe bella
Partula hyalina
Partula mirabilis
Partula mooreana
Partula radiolata
Partula rosea
Partula suturalis strigosa
Partula taeniata nucleola
Partula taeniata simulans
Partula tohiveana
Partula tristis
Partula varia

dean said:

Nanook
Partula snails have been bread for years in captivity, do you know if they are all the same species? and if any have ever been returned to the wild? Maybe lintworm could tell us if he sees this

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As the other chaps have posted there are indeed several species kept and bred in the UK, though numbers of individual species vary greatly, some are rather more numerous than others and, likewise some appear to breed far better than others too. They are a great conservation story, and certainly deserve their place in zoos, but they are not exactly the most popular of species within the zoo from the public`s point of view. (no offence to snails or snail lovers intended! )
As the link shows, some have been re-introduced, where possible, once the predatory species have been removed of course.

Thanks guys
I hadn't realised there were so may species in zoos you see "partula snails" and I had assumed they were all the same species. That is why I wondered why so many places kept them, I thought they must only lay one egg at a time and it took for ever to build up stocks.

I learn something new every day, now I just need to remeber it.

Nanook said:

They are a great conservation story,

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That they are, however we should not forget that one species went extinct while in captivity (I forget which one).

It's a rare event when you can categorically state the day a species ceased to exist (let alone the time).



Hix

Hix said:

That they are, however we should not forget that one species went extinct while in captivity (I forget which one).

It's a rare event when you can categorically state the day a species ceased to exist (let alone the time).



Hix

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That would be Partula turgida, which was doing reasonably well at London Zoo until a protozoan disease got into the colony of 296 individuals, and killed every single one over the course of 21 months. The last one died on January 1st 1996.

As quite a lot of the extant species have populations rather lower than this, and no one is sure whether they are equally vulnerable to said protozoan infection, it may not be the last species to end thus - although since the demise of the turgida snail biosecurity precautions have been increased rather a lot!

That was the one.



Hix