Newly Discovered Snails Fit in Eye of a Needle
Native to southern China, seven new species of microsnail are the smallest land snails ever found, a new study says.
At less than an inch tall, microsnails can be tough to spot with the naked eye.
But amateur Hungarian shell collector András Hunyadi was up for the challenge on a recent expedition to Guangxi, a region of southern China.
Hunyadi zeroed in on limestone-rich soil, since the miniscule mollusks use calcium carbonate in limestone to build their shells. He collected five samples and sent them to his friend Barna Páll-Gergely, an expert in the land snail family tree.
Sorting through the dirt looking for tiny specimens, Páll-Gergely made a huge find: Seven new species of microsnail that just happened to be the smallest land snails ever discovered. (Also see "Seven New Mini-Frogs Found—Among Smallest Known.")
“As soon as I saw it,
