Here is a diagram of the 3 most obvious differences. Excluding of course, where you found them…
Salcreep was kind enough to send me some of his snails, and they are indeed pyramids. I am still on the hunt for common rissoids so I can do a side by side…
Here are some pics of Saltcreeps snails…
Note the flipped apex…
Collumella fold
and the pattern of ridges…
Hey Tara!!! Great to hear from you! Awesome job on the pics , although they’d be even better if they were just rissoids :
:.
I think i have some of them though, if not i’m pretty sure another member has some. I’ll have to collect some and mail them to you also.
Thanks so much for the photos/ i.d. , and taking your time to post them here!
These are a bit larger (if I didn’t mix em up…)
Hey Saltcreep, Thanks for sending them! I’m still getting “to know” my lens, so I’m sure the camera can out do me, so this isn’t my final pic- But it’s enough to show the details.
That apex is so tiny and so hard to get into focus, I’m gonna need painkillers to stick with it- all leaned over trying to get the shot kills my old achy back, lol.
anyway, this is so far. and if you can find rissoids, that’d be awesome!! Thanks for the pyrams too!
Hey Tara…nice of you to stop by our little corner of the internet.
Be careful posting pictures around here - - we may steal them to use in the DRC calendar.
lol. I don’t know who wants a pic of a snail on a calendar, but…OK. hehe… anyway, I got company and had to step away for a sec, but I doctored the photo of the apex a bit so you can better see the flip…
OK, I’m done
[quote=“Tizzo, post:6, topic:4889”]
lol. I don’t know who wants a pic of a snail on a calendar[/quote]
These things already give me nightmares! i def wouldn’t want to stare at them for a whole month ::
I’m sure Craig was talking about all your other amazing photos. We have some serious zoa fans around here that would love your pics!
again… great job capturing the “important” detail of the snails.
That is by far the best description and ID of pyrams I have ever seen. It takes much of the speculation out of it. Great post!
Hey Tara
Welcomewow great pics i need that camera and skill set
http://delreefclub.org/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=28&topic=5285.15
This is the link to the pics I took, these snails were on my larger snails. Could you help confirm them please.
Hey dunk, for you there is good news as well as bad. The bad is that based solely on the location of collection, they are indeed pyramid snails.
It is extremely rare to see a rissoid on the shell of another snail, and even less likely to have several.
But the good news… Well, all things considered- is that pyramid snails are host specific, so these particular pyrams will not harm a clam.
Some target snails, some target clams, some even target anemones! But none will feed from more than one host.
Quote from Ron Shimek in reference to the types of snails that you have…
These pyrams will almost never be on the tissue of the host. They sit on the shells and extend a proboscis to the tissues. The proboscis pierces the tissues and sucks the blood of the host from a distance.
Just keep scrubbing them off with a toothbrush! And for anybody reading this; these pyramids are very common, so inspect your snails before adding them to your tank!!
Well that’s good I guess. Thanks. I have been removing them from the Astrae snails since and haven’t seen any in two weeks on the Astrae snail but I’ll find one here and there on the nerites. I did buy a bunch of hermits hoping they would snack on the smaller snails. They also clean the rocks way better than snails.
Very true on the hermits! They are awesome and under rated when it comes to cleaning.
As far as effectiveness at eliminating, Google pulls up 6 lines, yellow and green wrasses- but I think most people still are confusing pyramids with rissoids. Pyramids find themselves a pretty protected location.
But I’m glad to hear your not seeing them anymore. Please let me know if you do- I’d like some sort of timeline to watch for eggs that still need to hatch.