Global warming could kill off snails

Climate change models must be reworked in a bid to save some of the world’s smallest and slimiest creatures from extinction, a South Australian biologist argues. The majority of current global warming research is driven by air temperature, which does not necessary reflect the body temperature of animals, such as mobile organisms on rocky beaches like snails – and their capacity to survive the predicted rise in extreme conditions such as heatwaves. The work showed that rock and snail temperatures were strongly connected, suggesting snail body temperatures are largely determined by the temperatures of the rocks they are crawling on.

Ms Coraline Chapperon, PhD student, Biological Sciences, Flinders University

http://blogs.flinders.edu.au/flinders-news/2012/02/07/global-warming-could-kill-off-snails/