The Curiosity Show Episode 1: Mysterious land snails of Los Angeles with Dr. Jann Vendetti

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

April 19, 2016

SLIME

Snails and slugs Living in Metropolitan Environments (SLIME) is a citizen science project that aims to catalogue the biodiversity of terrestrial gastropods (land snails and slugs) in Los Angeles County and throughout Southern California. The Natural History Museum’s collection of land snails includes thousands of specimens from locations throughout the Los Angeles basin and spans the last 100 years. However, not much is known about this mollusk biodiversity today, especially within the cities of Southern California. That’s where citizen scientists come in!

We’d like you to help us complete the first citizen science snail survey focusing on urban Southern California by finding snails and slugs and, either 1) collecting them and bringing them to the Museum or, 2) taking photos and emailing them to us or uploading them to the SLIME iNaturalist page. With this information we hope to identify the species that call the urban areas of Southern California home, those that are new to the area, and those that haven’t been able to survive the changes that urbanization has made to their homeland.