A small colony of an Italian snail has been discovered for the first time in Britain. The discovery at our Cliveden estate in Buckinghamshire happened more than 100 years after they arrived in the UK in Italian stone and brick imported from Italy.
Matthew Oates, National Trust Nature Conservation Advisor, said:
'For this small colony of snails to remain undiscovered for more than 100 years, despite thousands of people visiting Cliveden every year, is remarkable. 'It really is a case of hidden nature revealing itself to the world after remaining in splendid isolation for so long and demonstrates how important our built structures can be for wildlife.'
The amazing find was made by the volunteer statue cleaning team at Cliveden when they came across this new and unfamiliar species of snail while cleaning statues in the gardens. Snail expert Janet Ridout Sharpe helped to identify them as Papillifera papillaris.
This attractive little snail, which has no English name and has become known as the ‘Cliveden snail’, has a spindle-shaped shell that is only about 11 millimetres long. It is common in the Mediterranean, where it is often found in old buildings.
© National Trust
This new addition to the British fauna had managed to lie undiscovered since 1896 when a large balustrade, made of marble, was shipped to the UK from the gardens of the grand Villa Borghese in Rome. There are at least several hundred individual Cliveden snails and they can be found in the crevices and deeply carved details in the marble balustrade.
Following this discovery there are plans to carry out a survey at Cliveden to establish the extent of the snail population throughout the estate. At the moment the main population centre of the snails can be found around the balustrade.
Matthew Oates, continued: 'Although the ‘Cliveden snail’ hitched a ride to the UK accidentally, it doesn’t appear to be a threat to our native wildlife as it has taken 100 years to get from the balustrade to the house, so we’re now working to ensure that it has a secure future at Cliveden. Discoveries like this are rare and it’s a chance for us to celebrate the amazing nature of wildlife.'
The National Trust’s heritage gardens are very important for wildlife, harbouring many rare species, especially insects and fungi. Since 2003 four species of wildlife new to Britain have been discovered in our gardens – a mistletoe bug, a paper wasp, a small fly called Homoneura interstincta and now this snail – and the surveying work has only just begun.
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