EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

The Common and Wonderful Snail of the Mangroves

Rodong Snail (Telescopium telescopium), Family Potamididae, Class Gastropoda
Northern Territory, Australia

Explanation:  The colorful star of this week's episode is a common snail found in the mud and muck of mangrove swamps.  Uninteresting, you say?  Look closer.

This snail -- called Rodong in Malay, and the Telescope Snail in Australia -- can grow to 6 inches (15 cm), and is also known by its scientific name Telescopium telescopium.  They range throughout southeast Asia and northern Australia.  

According to one source, this species is the only member and last survivor of its genus Telescopium that is known from fossils to have had more species back in the Late Tertiary Period. 

When you wash off the mud, it often shows bands of color, as shown in the main photo above, taken in the mangroves of the coastal "Top End" portion of Northern Territory, Australia.  
  

Unwashed, Rodong snails can blend into the mud and escape notice. 

So what good is it? 

For one thing, Rodong snails perform useful, perhaps vital, ecological cleaning functions in the mangrove swamps by consuming detritus and algae.

This is home to the rodong snail in the coastal swamps of 
gray mangroves (Abyssinia marina) in northern Australia.

Moreover, they are eaten, particularly in southeast Asia, and are said to be delicious when steamed.

Furthermore, studies have revealed that these snails produce chemicals of potential pharmacological value that can significantly depress central nervous system activity (Samanta et al. 2008).

And because Rodong snails consume decaying biological material and algae, they can also serve as biomonitoring indicators of excessive amounts of toxic heavy metals -- in particular, copper, zinc, and lead -- in their mudflat and mangrove environments (Yap et al. 2009).  

For a sessile and unspectacular species hidden in the mud, the rodong snail has many surprises and great value!  

Information:
     Samanta, S.K., K.T. Kumar, A. Roy, S. Karmakar, S. Lahiri, G. Palit, J.R. Vedasiromoni, and T. Sen.  2008.  An insight on the neuropharmacological activity of Telescopium telescopium--a mollusc from the Sunderban mangrove.  Fundamental & Clinical Pharmacology 22(6):683-691.
     Yap, C.K., A. Noorhaidah, A. Azlan, A.A. Nor Azwady, A. Ismail, A.R. Ismail, S.S. Siraj, and S.G. Tan.  2009.  Telescopium telescopium as potential biomonitors of Cu, Zn, and Pb for the tropical intertidal area.  Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 72(2):496-506.