At 10:29 AM 04/26/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>During lunch yesterday I picked up a gardening magazine belonging to one of
>my colleagues, and as I flipped through it I came upon a large full color
>picture of a snail.  I figured the attached article was about controlling
>snails that feed on garden plants.  And so it was - only it wasn't exactly
>an article, it was an advertisement - and the pictured snail was not one of
>the species that need to be controlled.  Rather, it was a carnivorous snail
>that was being offered for sale as a means of controlling Helix and other
>molluscan garden pests.  I visited their web site (www.biopest.com).  The
>snail they are selling is Rumina decollata, which they list as "decollate
>predatory snail".  Is this a reasonable approach to controlling snails in
>your garden?  Or could the importation of such a species result in mass
>destruction of the local molluscan fauna?
>Paul M.
>

Not only does Rumina eat native snails, but it seems to be very prolific
and adaptable. I have seen densities of over 30 / sq. meter at Myrtle
Beach, NC. They seemed to be subsisting on Triodopsis hopetonensis and each
other. Isn't there a law against releasing exotics?


*****************************************
 G Thomas Watters, PhD
 Ohio Biological Survey &
 Aquatic Ecology Laboratory
 Ohio State University
 1315 Kinnear Road
 Columbus, OH 43212 USA
 v: 614-292-6170  f: 614-292-0181
******************************************

"The world is my oyster except for months with an 'R' in them" - Firesign
Theater

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he
has to buy a license" - GTW

"Beliefs are more powerful than facts" - Duke Paulus Atreides