On the trail of snails

‘Native snails [in NZ and Australia] don’t consume green vegetable matter, they live on decaying leaves, fungus, biofilm (microalgae growing on rocks and tree trunks). They use their little ribbon of teeth, their radula, to scrape food. It’s actually slugs who are responsible for most of the damage to home gardens, but they don’t leave incriminating shells,’ Stanisic says.