Have you seen Drupella snails lately?

Today in one of our dives at South Miniloc, we collected around 160 individuals of Drupella sp in an area no larger than 100sqm.

These sea snails can cause serious damage to coral reefs when they reach high densities; eating live coral tissue and leaving white scars that eventually will be covered with algae. There are no specific studies that show how to control the population but removing them one by one using long tweezers and flexible claw pickup tools can be effective at reducing tissue loss or mortality of target coral colonies.