Appalachian Tiger Snail (Heather True Royal)

Sport this stylish graphic tee proudly and show your love for a species that makes the Blue Ridge Mountains so special!

With your purchase you are supporting Blue Ridge Discovery Center's mission to inspire curiosity, discovery, and stewardship through the wonders of the Blue Ridge.

The Appalachian Tigersnail (Anguispira mordax), an arboreal snail found across South-Central Appalachia in deciduous rainforest habitat, can often be found hanging out on trees at eye-level on cool, rainy days. These colorful mollusks are named for the bright red to orange bands on the whorls of their shell. They enjoy feeding on a wide variety of mushrooms, lichens, and plants, but more than anything, tigersnails have a strong attraction to tree sap. This craving is so strong that they will risk their lives seeking it. A native woodpecker, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius), drills bands of shallow holes in maple and wild apple trees, among other trees with sugary sap to attract tasty invertebrate prey. Tigersnails will gather around these sapsucker wells to drink the sap, as well as the charcoal-colored mildew that grows on the old, dry sap. A sapsucker could easily eat a tigersnail, but the snails have adapted to produce a glue-like, fluorescent defensive mucus just potent enough to deter the hungry woodpeckers.