THE once multifarious Partula snails of French Polynesia – as important to the study of evolution as Darwin’s finches – have a bleaker future than anyone realised. A misguided attempt at biological control has wiped out 56 of the original 61 species found in the wild, and the fate of the remaining five hangs by a thread.
The unusually diverse Partula species endemic to the Society Islands, part of French Polynesia, offered biologists a rare chance to research evolution in action. But the snails’ death knell was sounded in 1974 when a predatory snail called Euglandina rosea was introduced to Tahiti to…
