Editor’s Notes –This is the fifth installment of my series on
the general topic of freshwater snails in the aquarium hobby. Previous posts have been “What’s Out There?”
[9Oct17], “Loved to Death?” [6Nov17], “Pet Shop Malacology,” [21Dec17] and
“Snails by Mail” [24Jan18]. But don’t
worry. Full appreciation of Essay #5 is
not contingent upon familiarity with Essays #1 – 4.
This essay was subsequently published as: Dillon, R.T., Jr. (2023c) Freshwater Gastropods and Social Media. Pp 51 – 55 in The Freshwater Gastropods of North America Volume 7, Collected in Turn One, and Other Essays. FWGNA Project, Charleston, SC.
I am not social, in any medium. I don’t even text, much less twitter or tweet
or insta-chat or whatever it is that the kids are doing these days. I understand that social media can be effective
tools for communicating on a large scale. I did join Facebook about ten years ago, in
order to “like” a political group of which I was serving as an officer [1]. I regretted it at the time, and regret it
now.
In any case, about once a week I gather up my courage and log
onto Facebook. And watch in horror as great
garbled masses of disconnected conversations and news and opinions and jokes
and photos and videos from family and friends and professional colleagues and
high school classmates and Sacred Harp Singing Societies are disgorged simultaneously
onto my desk in one gigantic, hideous, stupefying dose.
So several months ago, a Facebook friend called my attention
to a group called “Snails, Snails, Snails.”
Heart racing with a mixture of curiosity and dread, I clicked over to the
homepage for the group, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but an
internet forum for “lovers, keepers, breeders, and sales of freshwater and
saltwater snails and slugs,” boasting 5,442 members!
"Gary doesn't smell so good." |
What an engaging assortment of odd-lot humanity! Mostly young, apparently from a wide variety
of backgrounds, hailing from all over the world, unified by the love, yes love
often and freely confessed, of gastropods.
Most of the members seem to be freshwater aquarium hobbyists. Posts about marine gastropods are occasional,
as are photos of pet land snails, and even peripheral aquarium fauna, like
shrimp. But I would estimate that, of the
perhaps 15 – 20 posts per day, at least 80% have to do with somebody’s freshwater
aquarium pet.
Fascinated by the social interactions as they unfolded before
me, I resolved to log onto Snails, Snails, Snails every day for 30 days,
beginning 25Aug17, and monitor all activity.
I recorded 16 different freshwater gastropod categories receiving
mention during my month of observation, totaling 375 mentions. Of that total, 230 mentions (61%) were of
Pomacea diffusa/bridgesii, almost universally referred to as “mystery snails,”
apparently the most popular gastropod pet in the home aquarium by
far. Indeed, at some point during the
month my attention was called to a pair of independently-operating FB groups
dedicated exclusively to P. diffusa, “Mystery Snail and Aquatic Lovers” with
3,166 members and “Mystery Snail Addiction” with 1,818 members [2].
The discussion seems to focus on husbandry – food, water
quality, life history in culture – not too much different from chatter about aquarium
fish, I don’t suppose. One probably
reads more of the “How do I tell if Gary is dead” sorts of questions. One also reads a surprising number of posts
sharing “the cute thing I saw Lightning do,” probably very similar to typical
social media interactions about cats and dogs.
The next-most-popular category of freshwater snails in social media seems to be the nerites of all species, with 33 mentions on Snails,
Snails, Snails for the month. This is
unsurprising, given the results of the survey of big-box pet retailers I
reported in December [3]. The remainder
of the species with double-digit mentions during my 30 days of monitoring were
“Ramshorns” (24), Melanoides tuberculata (19), Physa (17), Assassin snails
(14), and “Rabbit Snails” (Tylomelania, all species) with 10 mentions [4].
I tallied eight mentions of “apple snails” during my month
of observation, by which I was able to unambiguously confirm that the author
was referring to large, invasive Pomacea maculata/insularum/canaliculata types. I also caught two mentions of the invasive
“Columbian Rams Horn” Marisa.
One young lady in Houston shared an article from the
Houston Chronicle entitled, “Harvey Floodwaters bring weird pink things to the Houston landscape [5].” There were 11
comments and replies, most of the “LOL” sort.
But other comments included "I'll take them 😄" and "I wish I could find some of these here," and "So jealous! I'm in Illinois and haven't been able to get my hands on a pair."
Without a doubt, significant pent-up demand exists within the community of aquarium hobbyists for large,
invasive apple snails. I counted four separate appeals to purchase
such animals during my 30 days of observation, generally of the form, “Does
anyone have a LARGE (like, baseball sized) apple snail that they would sell? I
LOVE snails and I can't find any that large near me.”
It is impossible to know, of course, to what extent such
requests are satisfied through one-on-one “messaging.” Typical public replies to such solicitations included
“You’d have to find locally. So you should post your location. Shipping adults
is dangerous.” or “For channeleds you'd have to find a local seller. I believe
it's illegal to ship them over state lines.”
Here’s one (especially revealing) reply: “Haha thank you! Yes our
aquarium shop gets lucky once in a great moon and they have a personal tank
with one literally apple size so I am always checking in.”
I never saw any misgivings expressed by any member of the
Snails, Snails, Snails FB Group about the potential for large apple snails to
become invasive pests. Significant
qualms were not uncommonly expressed, however, about the potential for large
apple snails to destroy valuable aquarium plants. One member asked, “How do you stop apple
snails from eating your expensive plants?”
After several commiserations, condolences, and expressions of despair, the
Group Administrator posted this meme, which I do not understand:
Finally. I leave you on
this Valentine’s Day with one woman’s heart-wrenching testimonial to
the love she bore for her gastropod friends.
She posted:
“My son was in a horrific car accident on Tuesday and almost lost his life. He is home now and doing well but, while i was away i had my kids feeding my snails for me. It did not turn out so well. I lost a banjo catfish, a betta, and all but two of my big apple snails. I am praying these two guys will recover but idk.”
Yes, you read that correctly. Her son was in an automobile accident, and
she is praying for her snails.
Notes
[1] The South Carolinians for Science Education. [SCSE] Like us on Facebook!
[2] The list goes on
and on, actually. A simple search for
“snails” within Facebook will also return groups called “Land Snails” (742
members), “Tree and Land Snails” (925 members), “Snail Enthusiasts: USA” (1,400
members) and even (I wish I was kidding) “Giant African Land Snails” with 5,800
members.
[4] Others mentioned included Bellayma (6), “Pagoda snails”
(5), Thiara scabra (3), “Devil’s Spike” (1), Lymnaea peregra (1), Gyraulus
parvus (1), and New Zealand Mud Snails (1).
[5] Houston Chronicle (7Sept17). Harvey Floodwaters bring weird pink things to
the Houston landscape. [html]
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