Conus lividus (Hwass in Bruguière, 1792) and Conus sanguinolentus (Quoy and Gaimard, 1834) are closely related Indo-West Pacific cone snails that have largely overlapping distributions. Previous population genetic analyses of these species found that some individuals that were identified as C. lividus possessed mitochondrial gene sequences that were similar or in some cases identical to those of C. sanguinolentus. While these species tend to be easily distinguished based on shell color patterns, it is possible that some individuals of C. sanguinolentus were misidentified as C. lividus. The result though could also be due to introgression of the mitochondrial genome of C. sanguinolentus into C. lividus. We used a ddRAD approach to obtain sequences of short fragments of more than 7,000 nuclear genomic loci to examine patterns of variation and evaluate these explanations. Results showed that the two parental species are genetically differentiated at nuclear loci and all putative hybrids were unambiguously assigned to C. sanguinolentus based on shared patterns of variation. These results demonstrate that variation in shell color patterns of C. sanguinolentus overlaps with that of C. lividus, and extend the distribution of C. sanguinolentus into the Hawaiian Archipelago. Additional analyses of patterns of genetic variation among populations of the two species revealed that while C. lividus shows no genetic population structure, the population of C. sanguinolentus from Hawaii is genetically differentiated from populations elsewhere as found in prior analyses based on mitochondrial sequence data.

Granulilimax fuscicornisMinato, 1989 is an endemic land slug of Japan. This slug was described as a member of the stylommatophoran family Philomycidae Gray, 1847, and subsequently transferred into the systellommatophoran family Rathouisiidae Heude, 1885. It is still unclear whether the taxonomic revision to Rathouisiidae is supported by genetic data. In this study, we investigated the phylogenetic position of the genus Granulilimax using G. fuscicornis and an undescribed species Granulilimax sp. Although the phylogenetic relationships between G. fuscicornis and rathouisiid slugs remain to be solved, our preliminary molecular analysis using mitochondrial COI and nuclear 18S genes strengthen the idea that the Japanese Granulilimax slugs belong to Systellommatophora.

Attraction of the invasive snail Xerolenta obvia (Menke, 1828) to chopped cucumber and to a previously identified attractant based on a steam distillate of dry cat food was assessed with an established field population in Montana. Snails were significantly more attracted to the chopped cucumber than bottled water (control), using both traps and direct observations of attractants deployed in Petri dishes. The chopped cucumber also attracted significantly more snails to traps than the cat food distillate. These results suggest that chopped cucumber could constitute a cheap and simple lure for this and other invasive mollusk species. In addition, odors of chopped cucumber may support development of a new artificial lure, through analysis and reconstruction of the odor with synthetic compounds.

Oceanic island biotas are known by their high levels of endemism and high vulnerability. In Brazil, only few islands have been studied. The present study reports general information on the distribution and abundance of terrestrial gastropods of the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, a group of islands 345 km off the Brazilian coast. In total, four species of land snails were recorded: the endemics Hyperaulax ridleyi (Smith, 1890) and Ridleya quinquelirata (Smith, 1890), and the widely distributed Beckianum beckianum (Pfeiffer, 1846), and Allopeas gracile (Hutton, 1834). The most abundant species was H. ridleyi. By reporting the present situation of native land snails of Fernando de Noronha, this study provides data that could help in their conservation, comprising an important first step for planning future conservation strategies for the land biota of the whole archipelago.