Snail Associates of Blarina Brevicauda Talpoides (Say)

The Evolution of Food Caching by Birds and Mammals

“…Moles are known to bite earthworms, leaving them alive but unable to crawl from the storage locations (33). Shrews sometimes store live snails in underground corrals before consuming them (48), and the poisonous bite of short-tailed shrews is thought to leave their prey immobilized (74,122) in a manner analogous to parasitic wasps' sting. Shrews cache seeds before insects and both before mice, apparently in order of resistance to spoilage (74).…”

Biology of Anguispira alternata (Gastropoda:Endodontidae) with special reference to the digenetic trematode Postharmostomum helicis

“…In contrast to the findings of Ingram (1941 and1946), Muchmore found many snails under rocks, even when other cover was available. He conducted a series of observations in 13 ecologically different areas in order to ascertain what snail species might be found under 100 (in two cases, 150) stones in each area.…”

“…Mortality due to prédation by these two mammals would depend largely upon ecological balances within a given habitat. Ingram (1942) -reported finding a snail "culture chamber" associated with burrows of short-tailed shrews, Blarina brevicauda talpoides. The shrews had stocked the chamber with a number of slugs and snails, including A. alternata, and fed on them from time to time.…”

“…Since many of the same genera and species of land snails existing at that time still exist today, he inferred "that the conditions during at least part of the Pleisto cene did not differ from those of today in the same regions." Ingram (1941) noticed a single A. alternata "hibernating" on August 21, 1940 in the E. N. Huyck preserve in New York, following a period when temperatures ranged between 40-50°P. No mention was made of precipitation or humidity.…”

“…Ingram collected 70 snails of various species on trees in a beech-hemlock climax forest in this study, and found only 3 of these snails on hemlock, but 59 on beech trees. In reporting on winter habitat of land snails, Ingram (1944) noted that Binney (1885) and Simpson (1901) stated that snails enter "hibernation" with the aperture up; Ingram's ob servations indicated that such orientation was random. Of 473 molluscs (including A. alternata) collected during November and December in New York State, only 2 were buried in the soil.…”