On the east coast, H. concavum bores a hole in its victim's shell at
exactly the same spot.

Barry: next time I find a live concavum I will put your idea to test. I
suppose by mucus you mean saliva, otherwise, Haplotrema would dissolve its
own shell.

Aydin
snailstales.blogspot.com


On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:45:51 -0800, Barry Roth <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>In the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the predatory snail Haplotrema
vancouverense attacks snails of the genus Vespericola by rasping through
the body whorl a short distance behind the aperture.  I believe it does so,
rather than going through the nearby aperture itself, in order to avoid the
vespericola's mantle collar -- which may have some nasty glands or other
defense.  The resulting hole is large enough to admit the foreparts of the
haplotrema.
>
>  The whole process is accompanied by profuse secretion of foamy mucus by
the haplotrema, and the shell of the prey winds up looking like a snail
shell that has been lying around in humus for some time.  This leads me to
believe that the mucus may be acid, although I've never taken the simple
step of testing it with litmus paper.
>
>  Barry Roth
>

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