Differential Snail-Size Predation by Snail Kites and Limpkins

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Snail kites (Rostrhamus sociabilis) and limpkins (Aramus guarauna) fed exclusively on apple snails (Pomacea dolioides) in three meadows on coastal Guyana, South America. These meadows were not exploited by other conspicuous snail eating predators. Thus, I analyzed the relationships among the sizes of shells remaining after predation by snail kites and limpkins, and the sizes of live snails in the meadows. Snail kites ate snails that were larger than those eaten by limpkins from two meadows, but the sizes did not differ in a third meadow. Although variability in the average sizes of snails available to the predators occurred among meadows, kites consistently captured snails that on average were larger than were those available for predation, except for the aforementioned third meadow