Page 4 December 1980 No. 267 NEW YORK SHELL CLUB NOTES 
NOTES ON EUGLANDINA ROSEA 
During World War II the Giant African Snail, Achatina fulica Bowdich, 
was introduced to the Hawaiian Islands and other islands of the Pa- 
cific Ocean. In the years since then, attempts have been made to 
control the destructive Achatina by introducing carnivorous species 
to prey on them. Among these predatory, carnivorous species was an 
attractive land snail of our southeast: Euglandina rosea (Ferussac), 
Results were mixed and sometimes dismaying. What is the status now, 
after some twenty-five years? 
From: NYSC NOTES No. 41.4, April 1958: 
FLORIDIAN EUGLANDINAS IN PALAU, waging a noble war. The TIMES 
last Sunday (May 4) reports: “Another notable inhabitant of the 
(field) laboratory is the cannibal snail from Florida (NOTE: 
Euglandina rosea (Férussac)). This species eats other snails as 
well as its own kind. But it prefers the giant AET1LCan shawl 
(NOTE: Achatina fulica), which destroys £ood-producing gardens 
in many iSlands in the South Seas, especially in Palau...Theoret- 
ically, when the cannibal snails have destroyed all the glant 
African snails they will turn on each other for lack of any other 
food, and that will bring on the end of a natural cycle that will 
have benefitted everybody except snails." end quote. Perhaps 
the reporter is correct in his last speculation, but it makes one 
sad that before this snail-free day will dawn, the beautiful and 
entirely harmless species like Partula will also have disappeared, 
Next to Nature herself (who has destroyed more species of animal 
life than we can ever dream of), man is the worst destroyer. 
(mkj, ed.) 
From: NYSC NOTES No. 49.6, February 1959: 
OBSERVATIONS ON A CAPTIVE EUGLANDINA ROSEA collected by Mr. Carl 
Kauffeld of the Staten Island Zoo at Okeetee, South Carolina, in- 
dicate a wide range of molluscan prey. This is at variance with 
the experience of Ingram and Henning as quoted in Pilsbry's 
"Land Mollusca of North America, Vol. II" who found that "of var- 
ious snails offered, only Mesomphix inornatus and Anguispira 
alternata were devoured." My Okeetee specimen has readily ac- 
cepted Succinea ovalis, Mesodon thyroidus, Triodopsis albolabris, 
Humboldtiana sp., Ventridens ligera stonei, and in addition sev- 
eral species of slugs including small Limax maximus, Deroceras 
spe, etc. The slugs were ingested whole in a manner Similar to 
Conus ingesting a fish. I am experimenting at present with the 
relative importance of sight versus smell as a means of detecting 
prey -- smell seems to be the primary sense. 
e e« e e DR. WILLIAM H. LOERY 
From: Jacksonville SHELL-O-GRAM 20(12):4, December 1979: 
NOTES ON THE FEEDING HABITS OF EUGLANDINA ROSEA(Férussac) 
by Clyde Hebert 
Malacological authorities, Pilsbry et al., state that Euglandina 
rosea is carnivorous, subsisting on other snails, sluas, worms 
and the like. True, but that is their prererred dist * They can 
and will eat just what other snails do, when nothing else is 
available. (I, too, prefer steak, but can get along on beans!) 
