PLANARIA EATING LAND SNAILS IN SOUTHERN FOREST OF CHILE
When @yerkolloncon found a Polycladus gayi aka cow tongue for obvious reasons, he observed the first record of this species eating a black snail Macrocyclis-peruvianus , which was an unknown behaviour to date.
That observation gathered me and @piterkeo in reporting the finding, and in a perfect timming we found a second record, this time reported by Seteria Punukapa
which led the article Records of the land planarian Polycladus gayi (Tricladida, Geoplanidae) preying on black snails Macrocyclis peruvianus (Gastropoda, Macrocyclidae) published in late 2023 in Austral Ecology, free to read until June 30.
and interpreted as a comic too
Apparently, large plananian evolved to feed on large snails, do we expect tsmall planaria species to eat on tiny land snail, or even other tiny mollusc, or also on tiny invertebrate such native pillbugs, isopods or leeches? Fortunately, new observations come up, like this one by @noloalejandro27 recently seen in south Chiloé, a valuable record that help us understand more about the unknown fauna of the southern forests of South America.
