The National Trust Hunt For a New Snail Species in Britain

The National Trust has begun a search for a snail which originally comes from the Mediterranean since two colonies have been found in the UK. It is thought that the snail hitched a ride to this country on imported Italian and Greek stones over 100 years ago. A nationwide hunt is now being conducted to find where else this snail lives. The snail has no common name but its scientific name is Papillifera bidens. It is around 13mm long and has a pink/grey spindle shaped shell. There is now dispute between the two sites where the snail was found over whether it should be named the Cliveden snail or the Brownsea snail.

P.bidens is believed to have come to Brownsea Island on rock which was imported from Greece in the 1880’s. It is thought that they arrived at Cliveden later, in 1896, when brick and marble was imported from Rome. Since they arrived, the snails have not ventured far from each site and the two colonies have only just been discovered. They were discovered by volunteers that were cleaning statues for the organisation in 2008 on the Cliveden estate in Buckinghamshire. The National Trust is now searching all of its properties to see if the snails are living anywhere else in Britain, the theory being that the Victorians and Edwardians imported many statues, rock and brickwork from the Mediterranean and so this snail could have hitched a ride to elsewhere in the country. The National Trust for Scotland and English Heritage are also helping with the search.

The public have also been asked to keep an eye out for individuals of this species and upload photographs to this Flickr site where experts will verify whether the snails belong to this species. They have said that it is quite possible that the snail has spread to elsewhere in the UK due to items from gardens of grand houses being sold and put in household gardens. So far only one photo has been uploaded to the Flickr page and that is the one put there by the National Trust and can be seen at the top of this post!

(sources - BBC News and The Guardian)