The ongoing task to save the “most beautiful” snails in the world

The researchers began a mission to save what some consider the most beautiful snails in the world, as well as opening their biological secrets.

Snakes on the threat threat, which disappears from the habitats of the original forests in East Cuba, contains vibrant, colorful and exorbitant shells.

Unfortunately, these shells are desirable for plural enthusiasts, and conservative experts say the coincidence is pushing snails towards extinction.

Biologists in Cuba, and specialists at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, cooperated with the goal of saving the six known types of polymeta.

The most at risk of these is the sulfur of the polymetta, which is green with blue flame patterns around its wraps and orange and bright yellow bars through its peel.

But all types of polymeta are remarkably bright and colorful, which is an evolutionary mystery in itself.

“One of the reasons that makes me interested in these snails is that they are very beautiful,” explained the evolutionary world of genetics and mollusk expert Professor Angus Davison of the University of Nottingham.

He said that the paradox is that this is the reason why snails are very threatened.

“Their beauty attracts people who collect missiles and trade them. So the thing that makes them different and interesting to me as a scientist, unfortunately, is what puts them at risk as well.”

By searching online with Prof. Davison, we found many platforms where the sellers, their headquarters in the United Kingdom, were offering Polymita shells for sale. In one location, a group of seven shells was announced for 160 pounds.

“For some of these types, we know that they are really threatened with extinction. So it will not take much (if) someone who collects them in Cuba and trades, causing some species to be extinct.”

The shells are bought and sold as decorative objects, but every empty shell was one day a living animal.

While there are international rules to protect polymeta iceothes, it is difficult to enforce them. It is illegal – according to the International Trade Agreement with endangered species – to remove snails or her shells from Cuba without permission. But it is legal to sell shells elsewhere.

Professor Davison says that with pressure such as climate change and the loss of forests that affect their natural habitats in Cuba, “You can easily imagine the place where people who collect the shells of the population will bring together local extinction.”

To try to prevent this, Professor Davuson is working closely with Professor Bernardo Reyes Tour at Universide de Orient University, Santiago de Cuba, a biologist in conservation.

The goal of this international project is a better understanding of how snails develop and provide information that will help to preserve them.

Perhaps the part of the Professor Reese Tour of the endeavor was the most challenge: working with unreliable energy supplies and in a hot climate, bringing the polymeta iceotles to his home for captive education.

He told us in a video call: “They haven’t paid yet, but they are fine.”

“It is difficult – we have electric power all the time.”

Meanwhile, in the well -equipped laboratories at the University of Nottingham, genetic research is conducted.

Here, Professor Davison and his team can keep small samples of snail tissue in the cooled freezer to preserve them. They are able to use this substance to read the animal genome – the biological group of encrypted instructions that make each snail what it is.

The team aims to use this information to confirm the number of species exist, how they are linked to each other and any part of the genetic code that gives them unique color patterns.

Hope is that they can reveal these biological secrets before buying these colored creatures and selling them in extinction.

“East Cuba is the only place in the world where these snails are,” Professor Davison told BBC News.

“This is where the experience is – where people who know these snails love, understand, live and work.

“We hope that we can use the genetic information that we can provide to contribute to memorization.”