A photograph of two minute land snails taken in Gibraltar by Dr Alex Menez recently made the cover of the international magazine Mollusc World (Issue 68, July 2025). The headline “Acicula norrisi from Gibraltar” highlights the importance of this discovery.

For decades, Dr Menez, scientist at the Gibraltar National Museum, has searched for one of Gibraltar’s smallest and rarest land molluscs, a species known by its scientific name Acicula norrisi.

The story of this species stretches back to the 1880s, when malacologist John Ponsonby first found a single empty shell of the snail. It was not identified at the time, and its significance went unnoticed. In 1975, Adrian Norris discovered several empty shells in Gibraltar, which were later described in 1977 as a new species to science, named in his honour. The type locality was Gibraltar, and the snail became a protected species under the Nature Protection Act 1991 — despite no live specimens ever having been found.

Dr Menez, who is also an honorary researcher at the University of Gibraltar, searched for years but found only empty shells, raising concern that the snail might be extinct. Success finally came in March 2025, when he found several live snails of this extremely rare species. He photographed the tiny, 3mm-long animals alive, providing the very first evidence of living Acicula norrisi.

This discovery proves the species is still living on the Rock and is an example of the value of long-term, systematic fieldwork and research in understanding and conserving biodiversity. At a time when many species have been lost, this represents a rare and significant success story.

Minister for Environment, Prof John Cortes, who with Prof Clive Finlayson of the Gibraltar National Museum helped introduce the Nature Protection Act in 1991, said:

“This discovery by Alex Menez is an incredible story, rightly given prominence in a much-respected international journal. It once again highlights the importance of the work of the National Museum, GONHS, and others, in researching and protecting Gibraltar’s rich, and internationally important biodiversity.”