A reason to track your backyard snails
What鈥檚 small, slimy and runs the world? According to famed American biologist, naturalist, and writer E.O. Wilson, snails and other invertebrates.
These critters are the subject of a new project, launched today: the , that recognises the threat to snails and the critical role they play in supporting ecosystems.
The project helps people find snails in their gardens or local green spaces and track them by marking their shells with nail polish or non-toxic paint.
鈥淭his project is designed to help people to learn a bit more about the fascinating lives of snails, about their home ranges and their attachment to the places they rest each day,鈥� project co-creator, Associate Professor Thom van Dooren said. 鈥淪nails rely on chemo-reception, a bit like our sense of smell, to navigate the world, and in many cases, they seem to be pretty tied to specific home places.鈥�
Credit: The Urban Field Naturalist Guide to聽Snail聽Homing.
Together with Dr Zo毛 Sadokierski in the School of Design at UTS, he created the guide to draw attention to some of the smaller, often-overlooked, wildlife that is all around us, as well as provide some healthy distraction in these isolating times.
鈥淭his is particularly important,鈥� van Dooren said, 鈥渂ecause many invertebrates are disappearing en masse, with species becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Any yet these species play a range of important but often overlooked roles in ecosystems. These include:
- pollination
- seed dispersal
- 苍耻迟谤颈别苍迟听肠测肠濒颈苍驳
- being important food sources for a range of other species.
鈥淪nails have been particularly hard hit by extinctions. In fact, worldwide, there have been more documented extinctions of聽snails than there have been of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, combined.
鈥淒espite this, snails and other invertebrates (comprising roughly 99 per cent of the animal kingdom) are largely ignored in public discussions of extinction.鈥�
Hero image:聽Camila S谩nchez on Unsplash.