Assosiate Professor of Biotechnology

I am studying the neurobiology and behavior of the predatory snail, Euglandina rosea , the rosy wolfsnail. These snails make a living eating other snails and slugs. They track down their prey by following the slime trails that the slugs and snails leave behind as they travel.

Euglandina rosea

(the rosy wolfsnail)

Euglandina is a predatory snail native to the southeastern United States. It eats other species of snails and slugs. Gastropod mollusks like slugs and snails secrete mucous from their foot and leave slime trails behind them as they travel. Euglandina follow slime trails in order to find prey snails to eat and other Euglandina with which to mate. These fascinating creatures have a unique sensory epithelium, and specialized sensory processing that allow them to detect and follow slime trails with great efficiency.

Detection of chemosensory stimuli from slime trails results in two readily apparent behavioral outputs in Euglandina . First, a change in direction of motion in order to follow the trail, and second, once the animal leaving the trail is encountered, a choice between an aggressive versus an agonistic interaction (predation versus mating). These reliable and easily detected behavioral changes are the result of a precise discrimination between very similar chemosensory cues and provide an excellent model system for studying the mechanism of sensory discrimination and its effect on behavior. In addition, Euglandina snails may also be a good model for studying the acquisition of long-term memories, as our experiments suggest that slime trail tracking is a learned behavior in which snails learn that particular slime constituents are associated with prey species, and so follow trails containing those chemicals.

Pull down the menu below to view movies of Euglandina tracking and eating prey snails.
The prey is a baby snail of the species Helix aspersa , also known as the brown garden snail.

Here are some photos detailing wolfsnail neuroanatomy.

Euglandina ganglia Close up of cerebral ganglia Close up of lip tentacle nerve

In my lab, we are searching for the neural correlates of slime trail detection and discrimination. By using a combination of physiological and imaging techniques we hope to identify the neural systems involved in trail following, and characterize the neural signals representing slime trail stimuli. We will then study the effect of disrupting these signals on the trail tracking behavior. By studying the physiological basis of slime trail tracking, we hope to identify a neural circuit that guides the behavior of the snails as they identify and follow trails of chemicals associated with prey snails or potential mates.