Emerald green snail
The emerald green snail has a shell as green and shiny as a jewel. That is very unusual, because most snails are brown. It lives high up in the trees of the rainforest on one single island.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The green colour is only a very thin skin on the outside of the shell. Underneath, the shell is yellow.
People collected so many of its shells to make jewellery that the snail became rare.
Cutting down its rainforest is a big danger for it too.
It is protected by an international law, and in the USA it has been listed as endangered since 1970.
Most asked questions about Emerald green snail
?Why is the emerald green snail green?
Its shell has a very thin green outer skin. Under it, the shell is yellow.
?Where does the emerald green snail live?
Only on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, high up in rainforest trees.
?Is the emerald green snail endangered?
It is rare and protected, because people collected its shells and its forest is being cut down.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Papustyla pulcherrima
- Group
- Snails, slugs and worms
- Family
- Camaenidae
- Classification
- Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Camaenidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Green tree snail, Manus green tree snail
Where the facts come from
- Emerald green snail (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by H. Zell. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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