Bermuda snails were thought to be extinct from the island, a decade later breeders have released over 100,000 of them back

The great Bermuda snail, which was once considered to be lost forever, is now safe and secure. The species known as Poecilozonites bermudensis was believed to be lost for over 40 years until a small surviving population was rediscovered in a damp alleyway in the North Atlantic archipelago's capital, Hamilton, about ten years ago. They were hidden from predators by a concrete block.The tiny group of snails was moved to Chester Zoo in the UK, where zoo keepers remade an ideal habitat for the snails to grow and breed. A partnership between the government of Bermuda, a conservation researcher from the Canada-based organisation Biolinx Environmental Research, and Chester Zoo, where thousands of snails were carefully bred before being returned to Bermuda, made it possible.The snails, which are only found in Bermuda, had been hit by global heating and habitat loss. However, their decline was accelerated by the introduction of predatory "wolf snails" and carnivorous flatworms, which ate the smaller native species.The team bred the snails in specially designed pods at the zoo and painstakingly released them in protected woodland habitats. Keepers adapted existing snail husbandry methods to ...