These snails were considered the last of their kind, so they were collected and brought into captivity.
A conservation science team has created a new home for 60 precious snails at Chester Zoo. The correct feed, vegetation and conditions were recreated in the miniature habitat tanks.
The 1,329 snail offspring bred at the zoo are now marked with identification dots – using non-toxic pens and nail polish – and transported back into the wild for release.
“(It’s) a color code,” said Dinarte Teixeira, a conservation biologist at the Madeira Institute of Nature and Forestry. “This will allow us to detect them and track where they go, how much they grow, how long they survive and how well they adapt to their new environment.”
