Deadly substances for snails

[virusxe]

i was wondering what substances are deadly to snails,
as far as i know salt and ironoxide are deadly to snails.

are it all oxides that are deadly to snails or just ironoxide?

Thanks!

[coyote]

Metaldehyde will kill slugs and snails. It is sold as a snail/slug poison.

[fabrizio]

Heavy metals are poisonous (not to snails alone, of course), and expecially copper is very dangerous for them!

I wash hands every time I touch any dirty object with green copper rust, or simply any old brass thing, that could be oxidized in the surface. Be careful even with vegetable, that could have been tretaed with copper- sulphur powders!

Of course Copper is "essential" to snails, as it is to us (it takes part in many essential enzymes, in almost all living beings), and in addition snails have it in their primary respiratory pigment (their blood is greenish -when oxidyzed- not red as ours, juts because they have Hemocyanin, a copper-containing protein; the copper itself, is the "useful" part in carrying oxygen, just as iron is for us -Hemoglobin, although structurally qute different.

So, while a really minimum of copper is actually indispensable, any "further" amount, from accidental sources (as dirty copper things) must be crefully avoided!

[lee2211]

Salt, heavy metals as Fabrizo says, and as far as I'm aware certain chemicals.
They can absorb chemicals and such like calcium through their foot, which is why people don't reccomend painting nail varnish on their shells, should another climb over it.

[Paul]

Aug 6, 2010 14:29:55 GMT lee2211 said:

reccomend painting nail varnish on their shells, should another climb over it.

Once dry, oil-based paints and nail varnish are probably safe. I mention that because snails, unlike humans, can digest cellulose and there are plenty of tales of fulica eating the paint off peoples houses in Africa!

I'm not saying we want them to or that it's good for their health, just that it's not as bad as it would first appear. However, it also depends on what else is in the paint - certainly what chemicals are used as pigment.

[fabrizio]

On the other side, they have the capabilities of detoxifying lots of noxious (to us) chemicals, at least organic ones (as many plants alkaloids); heavy metals can just be "sequestered" and expelled, but I don't know to what extent...

-And there are even "natural" poison for them: I read many years ago, as "Uskarine" /uscarina or the like, proposed as a biological snail control, most effective against Theba pisana; this is a chemical from Calotropis gigantea, a Western Asiatic / North African shrub related to Milkweeds (Asclepias,), and to well-known poisonous plant genera as Nerium (oleander) and Strophanthus, all containing heart-stimualting glycosids.

Nevertheless, I see usually snails at eveing feeding -apparently without any bad effect- upon half dried Oleander leaves and -expecially- flowers... I don't know however, if the "uskarine" is directly related to cardio-active glycosids in Oleander and the like; in fact, I found little if anything about that, in the web...

[coyote]

I just found this today, about caffeine and snails:
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6892/full/417915a.html
" Pest Control: Caffeine as a repellent for slugs and snails . . . At high concentrations this stimulant becomes a lethal neurotoxin to garden pests."

[ness]

There appears to be many man-made substances that are harmful to snails, and many that the snails absorb but cannot flush out of their bodies. I do recall an article that mentioned that snails are studied in environmental science in order to estanlich levels of pollution, as the pollution will be found within the snails bodies. I'll try to find the link but I'm not hopeful!

[coyote]

So that's why I always see google search results full of scientific papers about environmental toxins using snails!

[ness]

I couldn't find the one I was looking for though. I seem to remember it was quite interesting and informative. Ah well.

[lee2211]

Really? That's very interesting.

Thanks Paul, I got told that it's dangerous and something along the lines of it can also be absorbed into the shell or something like that, I can't quite remember.