RE: Flammea attacked by panthera *Update*

[Kevin]

The person I was talking to about his panthera attacking his L.flammea just got back to my email.

He had put his flammea in with a group of young panthera, which are about 50p size, he checked them the next day and at least 5 panthera were stuck to each dead flammea, two of his 4 flammea were dead..He quickly removed the two living flammea, which has been ok since, there was cuttlefish in with the panthera, he isnt sure if the panthera were only trying to eat the flammea after they died, or had killed them?

Ideas

[Deleted]

i dont know....ive never heard of an achatinid eating another mollusc, dead or alive.

though i think there is only a very slight chance of this happening, so i dont think any of us should worry

[natrat84]

Oo err I don't see how the could have killed them. Very odd

[Val]

Is it possible for one snail to kill another?

Val

[Leah]

How would they? They don't exactly have big claws or teeth.

[Kevin]

eric said:

How would they? They don't exactly have big claws or teeth.

There are some species of carnivorous snails and slugs, my Rumina decollata snails kill other snails in the wild

[sezzy5889]

Does that mean they could bite us if they wanted too???

[Deleted]

i doubt that we have thick skin with many layers

[sezzy5889]

i can imagine

"Attack of the killer snail"

wmkl, rofl, lmao

[Val]

Panthera aren't carnivorous though are they?

[fatslug]

They were probably 're-cycling' the shells.

[Paul]

I agree, the carnivorous snails have an extra sharp radula for piercing shells and eating flesh. I suppose certain breeds with particularly sharp radulas could hurt a snail, but they'd simply retract. If the shells weren't pierced I doubt the panthera did any killing. As has been said, the were probably just taking advantage of the calcium.

As for the deaths, aside from any care, disease or genetic issues, I wonder if the snails died from stress. I'm thinking that if there were lots of small snails all rasping away, the flammea may have become distressed from believing they were being overwhelmed and eaten alive. Do you think that is possible?

That also raises more questions about whether different genera can predate on each other shells accidentally because they don't recognise them to be snail shells.

[Kevin]

admin said:

As for the deaths, aside from any care, disease or genetic issues, I wonder if the snails died from stress. I'm thinking that if there were lots of small snails all rasping away, the flammea may have become distressed from believing they were being overwhelmed and eaten alive. Do you think that is possible?

That also raises more questions about whether different genera can predate on each other shells accidentally because they don't recognise them to be snail shells.

Yes, that makes sense, they probably were stressed by the panthera thinking they were just a source of calcium and not a living snail.

[Val]

Oh how sad We are learning all the time though.

Val

[bookitten]

or
the flame snails could have just died from natural causes and the pantehra ate them. Cos garden snails eat dead birdds and stuff. the panthera coud have jsut done that.

[Deleted]

garden snails eat dead birds?

[bookitten]

yes. basically, most insects [even if they mainly eat plants] will eat carrion.

[Deleted]

i doubt snails wud like rotting mean, maybe arion slugs...

[Paul]

Snails do eat dead animals, but like you said, they'd have to fight past the slugs first lol.

[Kevin]

My friend has asked me to post again to try and find out whats happening with his flammea, maybe they just die for some reason and get eaten by the other snails afterwards?...anyway an update

Another flammea has died, he had put them in with his dimidiata (not sure how big his dimidiata are?) and he found one of the flammea dead with one dimidiata attached to the opening of its shell, with no flammea inside (eaten?) he said the dimidiata was trying to get inside the flammea shell? he said they are not wanting to eat the shell at all?

Any more thoughts on this?

personally I think that the flammea are dying, maybe being stressed by the movement of other species of snail in with them? and the snails are then eating the dead flammea.

[Paul]

Sounds like a fair assessment to me!

[Deleted]

maybe flammea taste particularly nice lol

[Kevin]

admin said:

Sounds like a fair assessment to me!

It also got me thinking, if I, or anyone else has a snail that died that wasnt removed quick enough that theres a chance that the other snails would eat it? If a snail died of a disease and other snails ate it would they catch it?
...
also Paul did you see the pm I sent you?...

[Deleted]

i had a few snails die in tanks and the other snails never scavenged from them.

[Kevin]

lotsofsnails said:

i had a few snails die in tanks and the other snails never scavenged from them.

Then maybe the flammea do taste nice like you said