What Is Connection Between Tiger & “Snail Of Sahyadri” – Free PDF Download

• A new species of land snail recorded from India has a touch of the tiger.
• Apart from being a carnivore, the new ‘snail of Sahyadri’ wears the name of one of India’s top big cat conservationists.

What is Snail?

• Snails are gastropod animals which have an enclosing shell, into which it is able to retract entirely, for protection.
• Snails are a different category of animals that fall under the phylum Mollusca.
• In household situations, snails tend to destroy fruits and vegetables.
• Snails are active during the wet season and inactive during the winter season.
• Snails are omnipresent in the world and are found in mountains, deserts, forests and oceans.
• Due to its tiny size, snails often fall prey to animals like lizards, snakes, rats and birds.

• The “snail of Sahyadri” recorded for the first time from Maharashtra’s northern Western Ghats is carnivorous. But that is not its only indirect link with the big striped cat.
• Perrottetia rajeshgopali, the newest chronicled member of the global snail family, is named after one of the country’s top tiger conservationists — Rajesh Gopal, currently the secretary-general of the Global Tiger Forum.

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• It is the first species of the genus Perrottetia to be described from India in 117 years.
• The species has been described in the latest issue of Archiv für Molluskenkunde, a German journal that focuses on molluscs. The paper is one of the first under the ‘snail of Sahyadris’ project of the Mumbai-based Thackeray Wildlife Foundation (TWF).
• The study was authored by zoologist Amrut Bhosale of Sadguru Gadage Maharaj College in Maharashtra’s Karad, Tejas Thackeray of TWF and Ben Rowson of the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, UK.
• The Western Ghats has a phylogenetically diverse land snail fauna, much of which is endemic to the region. About 277 species and 29 varieties belonging to 64 genera and 23 families are reported, 72% of which are endemic.
• The new snail is a hermaphrodite, and its genital anatomy is characterised by the presence of hooks in the penis and their absence in the vagina and the atrium. Carnivorous land snails are known to have such hooks.
• The carnivorous diet of Perrottetia rajeshgopali – it wears a white, glossy and translucent shell and its body is pale yellow with brownish spots and reticulated skin – was observed when it fed on a Eurychlamys platyclamys, a smaller snail.
• “The discovery highlights the need for a serious sampling of malacofauna in the Western Ghats and this group is extremely poorly studied and ignored and potentially at the highest risk of extinction due to climate change and other anthropogenic factors.” 

Way Forwar

• Snails are known to be one of the oldest animals living on the planet. Fossil evidence of primitive gastropods highlights the fact that these creatures have been surviving for 500 million years.
• “It’s high time lesser taxa are studied seriously to amplify the need to protect the Western Ghats from all the factors that threaten this extreme biodiverse landscape.”

Question:

Consider the following statements:

1. Snails are cold-blooded invertebrates with an enclosed shell for hydration and protection purposes.
2. Snails are inactive during the wet season and active during the winter season.

Which of the above statement is/are correct?

1. Only 1
2. Only 2
3. Both are incorrect.
4. Both are Correct.

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