Endangered Lord Howe land snail

At Arajilla we take great pride in caring for the environment. In fact the grounds of Arajilla are the largest and one of the few remaining habitats for the endangered land snail Placostylus bivaricosus.

The Placostylus group of snails are all ground dwelling and live in the forest leaf litter, with different species occurring from the Northern tip of New Zealand to Lord Howe Island and islands off New Caledoinia. The Placostylus is the largest of 130 land snail species found on Lord Howe Island.

The Lord Howe Placostylus is an endemic snail up to 7 cm long. When alive it has a brown skin on its shell, which disappears when these animals die. At Lord Howe Island, as with most places where the genus occurrs, activity by humans has reduced numbers of the snails significantly and it is an officially listed threatened species. In fact, the NSW Scientific Committee is of the opinion that Placostylus bivaricosus has been reduced in numbers to such a critical level that it is in immediate danger of extinction. The reason at Lord Howe Island for its decline is land clearing and predation by introduced rats, Blackbirds and European Song thrushes that eat the juvenile snails.

At Arajilla we mantain the leaf litter cover of our grounds, and we have recently spent A$50,000 on the construction of specially raised boardwalks to minimise any distubance to these rare snails.