Liguus fasciatus lignumvitae Pilsbry, 1912 - Florida tree snails, modern (latest Holocene). (public display, Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum, Sanibel Island, Florida, USA)

The gastropods (snails & slugs) are a group of molluscs that occupy marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments. Most gastropods have a calcareous external shell (the snails). Some lack a shell completely, or have reduced internal shells (the slugs & sea slugs & pteropods). Most members of the Gastropoda are marine. Most marine snails are herbivores (algae grazers) or predators/carnivores.

Liguus fasciatus is a land snail in Florida and Cuba that has an attractive, colorful shell. Over 120 nominal subspecies have been described, some of which are extinct from the activities of shell collectors.

From museum signage: Once abundant in the hardwood trees in "hammocks" throughout southern Florida, the brightly-colored Liguus snails have almost disappeared due to the destruction of their habitats. Over 54 color forms, or "subspecies", have been described.

"Ligs", as they are popularly known among conchologists, prefer to live on the trunks and branches of smooth-barked trees, such as the gumbo limbo, the Jamaica dogwood and the wild tamarind, Lysiloma. Sinistrally coiled, or "left-handed" specimens are very rare. Heavy growths of fungi and lichens serve as their food. Winter freezes will kill them.

Enemies of these snails include birds, the introduced European rats, beetles and illicit shell collectors. Liguus are prolific breeders, but their main danger comes from fires, hurricanes, pollution and the cutting down of their preferred trees. Transplanted colonies now extinct in the Lower Florida Keys, are now surviving in the Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve.

When early naturalists [in the 1800s], like Titian R. Peale and Charles T. Simpson, explored southern Florida, they found the Liguus tree snails abundant in all the hardwood "hammocks" and along most of the Lower Florida Keys. Past hurricanes had spread this species to almost every area in southern Florida, except in pine forests, watery swamps and where severe freezes occurred.

In less than 150 years, man-made fires, new roads, tree-clearing and commercial farming have made many of the subspecies and unique color forms extinct. Shell collectors reduced the numbers of some colonies and mixed various forms, thus producing new hybrids. Thanks to wildlife sanctuaries, many populations of color forms still survive today.

Classification: Animalia, Mollusca, Gastropoda, Pulmonata, Orthalicidae

More info. at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liguus and