Two snail species – the Cuban brown snail and Beck’s awlsnail – have been spotted in Singapore for the first time.
This also marks their first sighting in Asia, reports by the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (LKCNHM) said on Feb 28.
Prior to their discovery here, the Cuban brown snail (Zachrysia provisoria) and Beck’s awlsnail (Beckianum beckianum) have been documented in various locations in Central and South America, Hawaii and the Caribbean.
The reports on the snails, seen in November 2024 at Gardens by the Bay, were authored by Chan Sow-Yan and Lau Wing Lup.
The two nature enthusiasts are regular contributors to LKCNHM’s journal, Nature in Singapore, where new biodiversity sightings in the Republic are documented.
Lau, who works as a care manager in an elder home, said that he found live specimens of the two snails after extensive searches in the gardens.
“It took me a few day trips of active searching when I finally found a pair of Cuban brown snails – an adult and a juvenile alive and aestivating (in a dormant state) in the centre of a bird’s nest fern,” Lau said.
Both snails were likely to have been accidentally introduced via horticultural shipments, said the museum records. And according to LKCNHM staff, this seems to be part of a larger trend.
“Compared to the other groups of animals, there seems to be a disproportionately high number of introduced terrestrial and freshwater molluscs in Singapore,” said Tan Siong Kiat, the collection manager of molluscs at the museum.
According to Tan, there have been at least half a dozen terrestrial molluscs reported in Singapore for the first time in the past decade.
He said: “Most of the alien terrestrial snails and slugs found in Singapore are believed to have been introduced via the horticultural trade.
“Their eggs and young can be easily hidden among soil and foliage and if the conditions are favourable, a population can be established quite quickly and subsequently dispersed.”
Though it remains unclear whether a population of these two snail species have been established locally, the introduction of non-native species such as these may be harmful to local wildlife, the LKCNHM reports said.
“Unfortunately, it may take many years before we find out if any of the native snail species have been outcompeted, and it might be too late by then,” Tan said. — The Straits Times/ANN
