iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Final field day for this years Partula snail reintroductions. Checking up on the nodosa we released last week. All good, thanks to great work from the environment team on Tahiti and the zoos that coordinated sending the snails here @zslofficial.bsky.social @saintlouiszoo.bsky.social and Schwerin Zoo

010

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Now that the rest of the ZSL team have left today I did the last of the releases, in particularly challenging sites. Also some monitoring of the Moorean releases: all looking great in the rain

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Yesterday was a check-up on snails released on Raiatea last week. All very positive. Partula always do the unexpected, especially when you are confident you know what to expect. Released ground-living P navigatoria found 4 m up trees. Thats great as ground releases are risky with predatory flatworms

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

An exhausting but very productive day: climbing Mt Marau and finding interesting rare snail species: Partula otaheitana which is Critically Endangered, P. cytherea which hasn't been seen alive since 1930, and one that I can't identify at the moment. 🌏🐌

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Now back on Tahiti. Progress on Moorea was reasonable; the higlight being discovering a previously unknown population of the Critically Endangered Partula taeniata.

011

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Radio-tracking Partula snails does work! They have not had time to go very far, so the real test will be next week. This is encouraging for snail conservation so far.

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Partula reintroductions continue: three species returned to Raiatea yesterday, and more releases of Partula nodosa on Tahiti today🐌

010

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

2026 Partula reintroductions are underway. Today we tried something new: release of radio-tagged Partula tohiveana, bred at Schwerin Zoo. The tiny tags made by @celltracktech.bsky.social make it possible, but we wont know for a few days if they help us solve the mystery of Partula dispersal

030

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

We are delighted that our Partula snails are part of this fantastic initiative (phoenixspeciesproject.org/species/poly...) 🐌🌏

032

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

A visit to @zslofficial.bsky.social to discuss Partula snail Green Listing and conservation priorities with some time to look around. The colobus monkeys in the Snowdon Aviary were keeping dry indoors but the ring-tails were more obliging

020

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

My latest paper just published 🐌🌏

050

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

We've reached a bright point in this turbulent year: Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday. A wonderful inspiration. Very many years ago I had a tortoise conservation project for which he agreed to be patron. Here we are at its launch, both somewhat younger!

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

This year's issue of Tentacle now out with lots of interesting mollusc conservation news, including our report on Partula conservation in 2025 (and one of our released Partula suturalis on the cover) www.hawaii.edu/cowielab/Ten... 🐌🌏

031

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

The 'Uproar Conservation Challenge' allocates funding for selected species. Its live for voting - do make sure you vote for the Partula tohiveana snail! www.indianapoliszoo.com/uproar-conse...

indianapoliszoo.com

Uproar Conservation Challenge

Help vote to save endangered species with the Uproar Conservation Challenge. Each round a species moves on to compete for the big prize!

001

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

As the end of the teaching term comes into sight thoughts start turning to research. Here I've got the extraordinarily small tags for radio-tracking Partula snails later in the year 🐌

010

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

New York Times article on our successful re-establishment of Partula tohiveana. 'Darwin's finches of the snail world' is a good description www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/s... 🌏🐌

nytimes.com

Slowly, Slowly, ‘Darwin’s Finches of the Snail World’ Return From Near Extinction

131

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

That was rather a long day! A full day's teaching and then in the evening an online login for the launch in Tahiti of our new book on the history of Partula shell cultural artefacts. It's been a very interesting project delving into a different aspect of these endangered species. 🌏🐌

151

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

A great Peterhouse Biology Symposium yesterday: excellent talks and such interesting topics. Thanks to all participants (and attendees). list of talks below...

100

Reposted by Justin Gerlach

Oryx @oryxthejournal.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

🐌Justin Gerlach's blog post traces the remarkable journey of Partula conservation from the near‑total collapse of wild populations in the 1970s, following the introduction of the predatory rosy wolf snail, to successful reintroduction efforts.

122

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Intriguing that there may be hidden diversity in the invasive terrestrial ribbon worm Geonemertes pelaensis, also good to see some dietary data. It is an active predator of tiny snails, records of arthropods could be carrion feeding

010

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Just published: our paper on 'Re-establishment of Partula tohiveana tree snails in French Polynesia after 40 years of extinction in the wild'. Great results from 2024 that we built on last year, high hopes for other species this year. Oryx - bit.ly/4sCbk6O

010

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Geonemertes pelaensis, one of few terrestrial ribbon worms. Maybe s-e Asian originally; spreading from early 1900s, but only relatively recently becoming pretty much pantropical (on islands at least). I've always been interested in the odd little predators & decades ago wrote a paper on keeping them

010

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Now that our undergraduate teaching term is over and I've finished interviewing for next year's intake, I've been able to get back to identifying the invertebrates collected in the colleges biodiversity surveys earlier in the year. I'd forgotten how much material there was still to identify!

100

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Good to see an interesting species record published from @peterhousecam.bsky.social gardens

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

I've been too busy teaching to look at this in detail, but I did recently get the first results from the samples collected @peterhousecam.bsky.social as our contribution to BIOSCAN insect monitoring. That's helped push the number of animal species recorded in the gardens to almost 1000

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

My latest paper has just been published in PeerJ; working on this one was a really fun puzzle to solve. We identify an extinct predator on Mauritius from the holes it left in shells of its prey. Mauritian snail shells show evidence of extinct predators peerj.com/articles/201... @peerj.bsky.social

043

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

As we approach the beginning of the new academic year this year's @peterhousecam.bsky.social Biology Newsletter is now out islandbiodiversity.com/petnewslette...

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Partula reintroduction comes to an end for 2025 with a final monitoring in lovely Papehue valley on Tahiti. Nothing startling today but lots of newborn snails is encouraging. I really hope we can show success with Partula nodosa next year. 🌏🐌

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Final monitoring on Moorea, and what a day. A good start in the reserve at Fare Natura. Then we found wild-born adult Partula taeniata simulans. I was confident we could do that, so a pleasing find, but... 🌏🐌

100

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

Last field survey on Tahiti today: the southern point of Te Pari. Nothing unusual but good populations of Partula hyalina marmorata. The sort of patchy metapopulations we found are probably natural for this species (one of few partulids not to be Critically Endangered or Extinct) 🌏🐌

020

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

Today was a search for high altitude snails on Mt Aorai. Finding snails in this environment isn't easy. We did find some Critically endangered Samoana diaphana. The shell is extremely thin and translucent (hence 'diaphana'), the distinctive pattern is on the body inside the shell 🌏🐌

001

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Some encouraging signs for Partula nodosa and affinis today; many released animals found again and many births. We also scouted out possible additional release sites for next year.

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Partula are always unexpected. Today we visited a relict population of Partula hyalina and Samoana attenuata. What we didn't expect was to find hyalina eating another snail species. There was a carnivorous Partula in the past, but we've never document predation by hyalina before.

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Today was monitoring day on Huahine island and the last day for most of the team. What a day for a big find! Great results from the releases, but even better was finding this tiny one- the first wild-born Partula on Huahine for 31 years. Another great vindication of everyone's hard work 🌏🐌

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Today was the last Partula snail reintroduction of the year: Huahine island with more varia and the first rosea to be released since 2019

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

2nd day of monitoring on Moorea; still great progress with good dispersal and very little mortality despite us finding several of the predatory Euglandina. They may be invasive monsters but I still have a soft spot for their elegance (a picture of one instead of Partula for once)

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

First day of monitoring the released snails on Moorea. Exceptionally good results, for most species there was no mortality at all despite a night of unbelievably heavy rain - not what the zoo snails are used to at all. The snails in the reserve look fantastic

100

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Yesterday was a busy day for Partula conservation. As well as a full day of releases of snails back into the forest on Moorea we had the opening and stocking of the new reserve at Fare Natura. Fantastic to see that go from my wild idea exactly two years ago to this

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

On Raiatea today reintroducing Partula navigatoria descended from the last wild snails I collected in 1991. This was supposed to happen back in 2020. We also found an excellent site for Partula hebe next year (hopefully) 🌏🐌

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Partula releases today: we are trying a new monitoring technique with Partula nodosa using RFID tags. We also visited Tiapa valley to look for Partula incrassa but without success; that's often the way with Partula field research.

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

It's back to the Pacific today: to Tahiti for this year's Partula tree snail reintroductions. We hope to build on least year's success. This year we have participation in the field from London Zoo, Disney's Animal Kingdom and Woodland Park Zoo 🌏🐌

020

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

The collecting for surveying Cambridge college garden biodiversity is complete; now it's identifying the hundreds of insects etc that we've collected. A slight diversion from that work was this visiting sparrowhawk - our sparrows were less than delighted at its sudden appearance.

110

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

Last major sampling of the Cambridge colleges biodiversity survey today: @selwyn1882.bsky.social. A pond teeming with life, and an overlooked find: Hesperomyces harmoniae fungus that lives only on the invasive harlequin ladybird (those are the little yellow tufts on the back of the beetle)

020

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Another day studying biodiversity in Cambridge colleges. A rosy tiger moth at Trinity, woodland @queens.cam.ac.uk and I was hoping for the Cambridge endemic 'Backs goldilocks buttercup' @kingscollege.bsky.social but I can't find out how to identify it, so this photo might be any old buttercup.

010

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Top find of today's biodiversity survey of Cambridge colleges was a wasp spider at Trinity College, also wonderful flowers Clare College despite the dry

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Today its been biodiversity assessments in what looks like very interesting long grass habitat in @churchillcol.bsky.social and @trinityhallcamb.bsky.social

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Another week, another set of Cambridge colleges to study. Yesterday we surveyed the biodiversity of Murray Edwards and @fitzwilliamcollege.bsky.social. Two more to do today.

010

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

And today we sampled habitats in @caiuscollege.bsky.social and @darwincollegecam.bsky.social . A very hot day for hunting insects.

010

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

This week my Cambridge colleges' biodiversity project has so far surveyed Wolfson, @corpuscambridge.bsky.social , @robinsoncollege.bsky.social and @newnhamcollege.bsky.social. With yesterday's heat comparing the colleges' range of water bodies was particularly welcome

000

Justin Gerlach @jstgerlach.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Our paper on the extinct Chilonopsis land snails of St Helena has just been published in @ejtaxonomy.bsky.social. We review all the old material, including what we could find of Charles Darwin's collection, and describe a new species from ongoing palaeontological work doi.org/10.5852/ejt....

031