The snail Rapana venosa appeared in the Black Sea during the early 50ies of the last century. It became a disaster for the blue mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis and recently for all other mussels living on the sandy bottom.
Humans have been the only enemy of the snail’s population during the past 15 years when the export of frozen meat of Rapana venosa to Japan was undertaken.
As a possible result of the active trawling for Rapana over some natural blue mussel’s fields along the coast, an enormous amount of small in size Rapana venosa has returned to the shallow reefs recently. It might be considered as an attempt of this species to survive.
Small in size, out of commercial value, these small Rapana venosa species are ready to lay eggs and reproduce themselves.
There is an evidence that they have begun to eat very small mussels, dead crabs, other carcasses and exhibit even cannibalism due to food shortage.