Misbehaving snail ID

[RogerN]

Hi
We have recently started our aquarium and noted a brown snail hitching on the LR. First thought was "this is cool, something moving in the tank". However, when we woke up yesterday we found the snail entangled with one of our newly aquired turbo snails. When the brown one left, the turbo was lifeless . The perpetrator was of course sendt to the "eternal hunting grounds" together with its last victim.

I'm not able to find any ID information on this snail in any of my available litterature, and as I like to know who/what I killed, I wonder if anybody either knows what it is or can point to a useful site on the net?

Here's a picture of the delinquent mollusc.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

that looks an aweful lot like a Nasarius Snail to me...mine are sveral different colours in my tank some are white some are green some are brown..

if that is a Nasarius snail then you have nothing to worry about, they are very good to have in your tank...

i suspect the newly aquired turbo snail was dying and that is why the nasarius attacked it...mine did the exact same thing when my astrea and turbo snails died..(i an pretty sure they ran out of food since my tank was spotless when they stopped moving)

i have to say though it was pretty wild watching the 4+ inch bristle worms i have rip the dead snails appart...

 

[pagojoe]

Hi Roger,

That's Pollia undosa (or Cantharus undosus, depending on where you choose to break genera/subgenera). It's a buccinid whelk, and eats other snails.

http://www.gastropods.com/8/Shell_798.html

Cheers,



Don

 

[RogerN]

Hi and thank's a lot !
That explains its sinister ways. The gastropod site is now added to my favorites. Pattern and shape of the shell corresponds nicely to "the body" I have. I was pretty shure the turbo didn't stop working due to lack of food as there's still some green stuff left...