Collecting Land Snails
- Safety - before heading out on the trail please see "For Your Safety".
- Everyone collecting specimens in the Park is required to obtain a collecting permit. This can be applied for online on the National Park Service Research Permit and Reporting System.
|
Materials for collecting in the field. Text and photo from: Land Snails of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Eastern Region) |
The natural behavior of land snails can be observed best during warm, rainy nights when snails are most active, mid-spring to early summer, when nighttime temperatures are 60 degrees or above.
- Materials List for Collecting in the Field
- Ziploc bags
- Permanent marker
- GPS unit
- Field notebook
- Hand lens
- Quart-size drying bags
- Collecting Methods
- Macro Snails
- Samples of larger (macro) specimens from 5mm and greater should be collected and placed
in Ziploc bags with date, site number, GPS coordinates, and collector name written in permanent
marker on the bag.
- Samples of larger (macro) specimens from 5mm and greater should be collected and placed
in Ziploc bags with date, site number, GPS coordinates, and collector name written in permanent
marker on the bag.
- Micro Snails
- Samples of smaller (micro) specimens from 4mm or less are best collected from leaf/soil collections.
- Sites that yield increased numbers of snails include the base of black walnut (Juglans nigra) and butternut (Juglans cinerea) trees, the base of large mature hardwood trees, tree crotches and leaf litter along the edges of seeps.
- Optimal sites that tend to yield the most land snails can be determined by collecting a handful of soil/leaf litter then scanning the litter with a hand lens for evidence of micro specimens.
- If any snails are observed, a quart-sized cotton drying bag is filled with the material from the site, labeled with the date, site number, collector’s name and GPS coordinates.
- These leaf samples are taken back to the lab and dried for approximately two weeks.
- Dried samples should be sifted through a series of sieves ranging from 4.76 mm down to 500 micrometers.
- The subsequent debris that remains after this sifting process is then searched with the aid of an Optivisor or other magnification device.
- It will be necessary to use a zoom microscope to determine the species of these small snails.
- Many of them have microscopic ornamentation that can only be seen under high magnification.
- Collection of Live Specimens
- Generally it is not necessary to collect live specimens due to the abundance of dead shells.
- If live snails are collected for the purpose of anatomy work, it is necessary to euthanize them in water for 24 hours so that they relax, then place them in a solution of at least 85% (or higher) ethyl alcohol.
