Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator

Science News,  April 5, 2008  

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WOLFSNAIL: A Backyard Predator SARAH C. CAMPBELL AND RICHARD P. CAMPBELL

A snail may seem an unlikely candidate for most ferocious predator, but the wolfsnail certainly deserves consideration. The Campbells begin the snail's story on a rainy day: Water drips from a porch into the shell of a sleeping wolfsnail, who awakens and climbs a hosta leaf in search of food. Sarah Campbell sets an intentionally ambiguous stage for what the meal might be: Is it the hosta leaf? Then she calls out the snail as the carnivore it is: The wolfsnail eats meat. A few lines of text per page accompany bright, close-up color photographs that not only detail the snail's search for its prey (leaf-eating snails and slugs leave detectable trails of slime), but also the prey's demise. The text, like the photos, makes no bones about it. The final two pages of this children's book provide additional details. Native to the southeastern United States, the wolfsnail has become a pest in many countries where it has been introduced to control populations of unwanted leaf-eating snails. Boyds Mills Press, 2008, 32 p., color photos, hardcover, $16.95.

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