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Sanguine Litter Snails in the Waianae Mountains
Posted: May 8, 2009
For the past several months, I have been hiking up and down a series ridges and valleys in the Wai’anae Mountains to search for sanguine litter snails, which have a stunning zig-zag pattern on their reddish-orange shells.
After seeing photos of sanguine litter snails in the book “Remains of a Rainbow”, I’ve been wanting to see them with my very own eyes. The sanguine litter snail (Laminella sanguinea) is one of a handful of endemic Laminella snail species that live in the leaf litter. But the sanguine litter snail is unique in its genus as the only species to also have an arboreal habit — sometimes living patches of ‘ie’ie, also known as the crawling screwpine (Freycinetia arborea).
‘Ie’ie is one my favorite plants in the native forest. Endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, ‘ie’ie produces a shock of long blade-like leaves that whorl up and emanate from a central stem. Patches of ‘ie’ie can grow in a tangle on the ground or can climb up and anchor themselves to large trees with strong fibrous roots. So strong are their roots that they were woven into fish traps by the Hawaiians, and into a netting upon which bird feathers were tied to make feathered capes, helmets, and other articles.
One of the more interesting features of ‘ie’ie is that there are two types of plants — male plants that produce male flowers, and female plants that produce female flowers. Female plants, shown in the photo above, bear fruit that can be orange in color but is more commonly green.
Male flowers are orange-pink in color and have “petals” that are actually modified leaves. Their stamens are dusty orange-pink in color and produce copious amounts of pollen. ‘Ie’ie is sacred to Laka, the goddess of hula, and is one of the plants placed on the altar of the hula halau.
After several months of searching in the leaf litter beneath patches of ‘ie’ie, I was thrilled to finally stumble on the empty shells of sanguine litter snails. While most of them were old and bleached almost entirely white, a few of them still had some color and their classic zig-zag pattern. I placed these empty shells on a patch of moss to take these photos. The larger shell is half-an-inch long and the smaller shell is just over a quarter-inch long.
Like other native snails, sanguine litter snails have been in serious decline for decades. Since they spend time in the leaf litter, they are more susceptible to predation by carnivorous Euglandina snails, which spend much of their time on the ground. Sanguine litter snails are extremely rare — since 2000, fewer than 30 living snails have been sighted. My quest to find and photograph living sanguine litter snails continues.
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SOURCES:
‘Ie’ie (Freycinetia arborea), University of Hawaii, Department of Botany
Laminella sanguinea, Wikipedia
Rare Snail Sighted Again, Ecosystem Management Programs In Hawaii, US Army
Remains of a Rainbow, Rare Plants and Animals of Hawaii, David Liittschwager and Susan Middleton, National Geographic, Washington DC, 2001, Page 237
Tropical Exotics By Horace Freestone Clay, James C. Hubbard, Rick Golt
Beautiful pics, I hope you find the snails!The shells are amazing, I am more familiar with the Achatinalla species. I had not heard of these. I hope they have these guys breeding at the UH snail lab.
one thing though, ‘ie’ie is not endemic to hawaii as you say in the text, it is indigenous to hawaii as it is found in other islands of the pacific(i.e Samoa).
Nathan, these photos are great. Thanks for hunting them down. I recently saw your photos of other Hawaiian snails on exhibit in the UH Hamilton Library – wonderful. Mahalo. Brian (HTMC member)