The origins of the ramshorn snail pink

One of the most beautiful aquatic snails is undoubtedly the pink ramshorn snail.

But is it natural, and how did it appear?

Is it a particular species? A different snail?

 

Aesthetically, my favorite snail is certainly the pink ramshorn snail.

The blue ramshorn snail is also superb and unusual, but the pink individuals have an absolutely incredible effect in the aquarium.

 

But is it a separate species?

The ramshorn snail in our aquariums is a snail whose natural color is brown.

It is natural selection that led to this color, as it allows this species to be perfectly camouflaged in the mud of water points. So naturally, the genes leading to this color have been selected over millennia and generations.

This color is due, exactly like that of our hair or skin, to the main pigment of the animal kingdom: melanin.

It is the different forms of melanin that give most of the colors present on animals, including birds.

Black, sand, beige, chocolate brown, red, yellow, etc. All these colors are variations of the same pigment.

The ramshorn snail: two superimposed colors!

The body of the ramshorn snail is dark brown, almost black, due to the presence of melanin.

The shell is also tinted throughout by this same pigment, which makes it brown.

The dark brown of the body seen through the brown shell gives a pronounced tint.

The genes for wild colors are almost always dominant genes, hence the low variation in the coats of animals of the same species in the wild.

And what if a mutation appears?

From time to time a mutant gene appears. Generally, it functions poorly, since it is due to an accident, and the individual is not viable.

Sometimes, by chance, the mutation modifies the animal without making it sick.

So it is a rare situation: a gene error that copies itself poorly, but which by the greatest chance still allows the body to function.

This is the case with albinism.

The example of the white rabbit is known. It is known that this is due to an albino gene that deprives it of all pigmentation, to the point that even its eyes are red, with no melanin preventing the inside from being seen.

In some cases and for certain animals, albinism is fatal and no living white individual is known.

But in almost all cases, albinism is not fatal.
It is, however, extremely rare, because this "weird" gene must have been given by both parents. So both parents must have had, hidden in their DNA, the same mutated gene concealed by the dominant wild gene.

There are therefore extremely few truly albino individuals, that is, having received the same mutated gene from both parents.

In the exceptional case where this happens, the animal does not have the camouflage provided by evolution and is therefore, in a way, "abnormal." Natural selection eliminates it very quickly: a completely white animal in the grass is as noticeable as a nose in the middle of the face and is caught and eaten first!

In the example of the pink ramshorn snail, it is indeed the same species as the brown one.

But this snail can be albino of the body, the shell, or both!

Albinos of the body only (red body and brown shell) or of the shell only (black body and white shell), in both cases we visually obtain the famous (and sumptuous) blue ramshorn snail.

But in one case out of several million, the same individual accumulates both albinisms. It then has a red body and a white shell. Hence, with the transparency effect, a totally pink appearance, which varies according to age and thus the thickness of the shell.

It is an absolute rarity, a genetic lottery aberration and therefore, in fact, finding such an adult individual in the wild is utopian.

In nature, such a color gives these individuals no chance of survival, as they can be spotted from several meters away right from birth!

But in an aquarium, we have the possibility to raise, protect, and breed them.

Warning: since these genes are "recessive," it only takes the ramshorn snail pink to cross with a single brown or blue friend for the albinism to be mixed again, and thus invisible.

An absolute gem born from an improbable chance!

This is how we have, in an often ignored or despised animal species, individuals of incredible beauty, in an absolutely natural way (no GMOs!), offering a rare spectacle in a natural or low-tech aquarium, making many fish pale in comparison.

Even rarer and more spectacular than the white lion!