UNiversity od Florida: Meet the world’s deadliest duo

Turns out the cannibal snail that invaded tropical islands worldwide has a partner in crime

It’s like something straight out of a 1950s horror flick—a killer snail that devours its own kind by tracking their slime trails with its handlebar moustache-shaped sensors.

Wait, what?

That’s right, the 3-inch “rosy wolf snail” from Florida has redefined the expression “at a snail’s pace” by quickly decimating its relatives in Hawaii and on many other islands over the last 60 years.

Cue dramatic music.

The shelled terror has earned recognition as one of the deadliest animals in the world—responsible, in part, for more than one-third of all animal extinctions since the Middle Ages. In a strange turn of events, University of Florida malacologist John Slapcinsky and colleagues at Pomona College, University of Hawaii and Howard University have found there’s actually two lethal gastropod species on the loose. What snail will be next? Slapcinsky says a species he recently discovered from a highly endangered group on the Pacific island of Palau may be its next victim. 

The slimy menace is easily identified by two sensory appendages called oral lappets, which extend from the sides of its mouth like a handlebar moustache.