Snai ID needed

[Sugar Magnolia]

I apologize in advance for the picture quality. My camera doesn't do macro well, and this guy is so tiny.

I found 2 of these this morning before I turned on the lights. I was only able to grab this one. The other one appeared to be dragging a collonista snail behind. I'm not sure if it ate it, or if it was coincidental, but the empty collonista shell is in a crevice where the snail retreated.

 

[pagojoe]

Hi Adrienne,

It's a little marginellid in the genus Volvarina. There are several species that can look a lot alike, including ones from the Indo-Pacific, Caribbean, and Panamic regions. The most common is Volvarina philippinarum, although it probably grows to be the largest among these similar, mostly tiny, species. The are both predators and scavengers, and I've seen them dragging and killing tiny snails before so I don't doubt that you witnessed the same thing. On the bright side, they don't seem to be able to kill anything that's a lot bigger than they are.

The darkness of the color and width of the banding may be variable, so it would be hard to ID it for certain without knowing where it originated. Here are the most likely candidates, all of which behave in about the same way:

http://www.gastropods.com/1/Shell_2281.shtml
http://www.gastropods.com/2/Shell_10572.shtml
http://www.gastropods.com/4/Shell_11944.shtml
http://www.gastropods.com/0/Shell_10570.shtml

Cheers,




Don

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Don, thanks so much for taking the time to give me an ID. I'll have to do some more lights out searching to see how many there are.