?Wonderful!? is how Bermuda Aquarium Museum and Zoo curator Wolgang Sterrer called news the endangered Bermuda Land Snail has begun its bounce-back with 227 live specimens flourishing in a lab in London.

While many Bermudians understand the importance of fighting to save the Bermuda Cahow or the Skink, few know of the surviving Bermuda Land Snail species, Poecilozonties circumfirmatus which has is being brought back from to verge of extinction.

The Poecilozonites? genus is important as an example of species radiation (or variation) was first established in the 1960s by renowned Harvard palaeontology professor Stephen Jay Gould, who found that a total of 15 species likely grew from one lone specimen thousands of years ago.

Older Bermudians might remember days when the saucer shaped Poecilozonites (pronounced pee-sil-o-zon-eye-tees) were picked up by the bucketful to be ground up and burnt for lime and mortar.

When Gould returned to Bermuda ten years later he could not find a single live snail of the three species he had seen.

An intern at Bermuda Aquarium Museum and Zoo, Alex Lines re-discovered the tiny snail in July 2002 after being sent to likley sites.

Dr. Wolfgang Sterrer, head of the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo yesterday remembered having to ?twist someone?s arm? at the London Zoo?s Invertebrate Conservation Unit to take 56 of the snails in an attempt to save them.

Now, three years later scientists have successfully bred 70 adults and 157 juveniles at the zoo. ?That?s wonderful news!? Dr. Sterrer gushed yesterday.

In Bermuda, the carnivorous species Euglandina rosea and Gonaxis quadrilateralis were introduced in 1958 and 1969 to deal with some runaway Spanish edible snails, Otala ? brought to Bermuda in the 1920s as a meal.

But the cannibal snails are thought to have helped deliver the near knockout blow to Poecilozonites ? which had no natural defences to predators. Pollution and development are also thought to have contributed to the snail?s decline.

Poecilozonites is now also threatened by land flatworms ? of which two species also feed on snails. This means that when the Poecilozonites is brought back to Bermuda, they will have to be kept in a monitored environment like Nonsuch Island.

Dr. Sterrer said following a recent survey of this protected Island, another ?very old introduction? snail not native to Bermuda was also discovered. Thought to have come to Bermuda over 100 years ago.

?So there is hope for these snails as long as places like Nonsuch Island can be kept free of introduced animals,? he said.

He added that the Curator of Invertebrates at the London Zoo, Paul Pearce-Kelly was planning to visit Bermuda in the new year to help local scientists establish this tiny snails? preferred food and in this way help create this necessary sanctuary for them.

Meanwhile back at the London Zoo, close monitoring of egg batches and the resultant hatchling snails is clarifying average clutch size, incubation periods, how long the young take to mature and the overall longevity of the snails.

All this information will then be fed directly into Bermuda?s on going conservation efforts for the species.