Polymites, a symbol of the fauna of Baracoa (+Photos)

Today, we have selected a topic related to our fauna. I will tell you about the polymita, a snail endemic to Cuba, considered the most beautiful of its kind in the world.

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31 de julio de 2019 - By: Mercedes Hernández

Today, we have selected a topic related to our fauna. I will tell you about the polymita, a snail endemic to Cuba, considered the most beautiful of its kind in the world.

Just with one look at them we get enchanted by its colorful shells. They are the symbols of the fauna of Baracoa.

The snail is a mollusk we mostly find in eastern Cuba, especially in Baracoa and Maisi's municipalities, in Guantanamo province; although it can also be found in adjacent areas of this territory and of its neighboring, Holguín.

This mollusk stands out by the color of its shells and its so many stripes, though not all of them are exactly like that. It has arboreal habits, fed of fungi and prone to changes of humidity, luminosity, temperature and salinity of environment, for which it has not be able to adapt to other territories.

In the last few years some 15 different shell designs were classified, though it is noticed that the descendants of this rare snail show less and less polychromy.

Some studies compiled in the book Snails, by José Espinosa, PhD. In Biological Sciences and research professor at the Institute of Oceanology, along with the renowned photographer Julio Larramendi, confirm the increasing decline in populations. Among the causes, they point out the looting of shells for sale, collecting and crafts.

And, although the capture of this invertebrate is prohibited in Cuba, and there are regulations for it, the decline caused by international demand for collectors is alarming.
Cuba signed an agreement to keep Cuban polymita safe, within the legal framework of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known by the acronym: CITES.

Appendix One of CITES included, as a Cuba's proposal, the adoption of severe measures against traffickers of these endemic mollusks from the east of the country. They are also declared "special" species of our country, with maximum protection and the prohibition of extracting them from their environment and exporting or marketing them by resolution issued by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment.
As journalist Haydee León Moya says, polymites are beautiful, but not completely blissful. 
 
The siege of man has been so cruel and for so many years that today their existence and that of almost all of its gender are in danger.

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