The Cultural and Scientific Importance of Hawaiian Land Snails
Listen to a scientific presentation about Hawaiian land snails.
to
Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum 1525 Bernice St., Honolulu, Hawaii 96817
Dr. Norine
Snail
Register for this Science Talk exploring the cultural and scientific importance of Hawaiian land snails with Dr. Norine Yeung, Bishop Museum Malacology Curator, and Dr. Sam ‘Ohu Gon III, Senior Scientist and Cultural Advisor at the Nature Conservancy of Hawaiʻi.
The event is at Bishop Museum, Atherton Halau. General Admission is $10. Members receive 10 percent off.
Hawaiian snails are both diverse and important to our cultural and natural heritage. The earliest sections of the Kumulipo (a Hawaiian creation chant) are devoted to invertebrates of land and sea. “Singing” land snails played an important role in love poetry and characterizations of place, and even their names reference details about their habitat. Historically, land snails were believed to sing, and were called “pūpūkanioe,” meaning the shell that sounds long. Traditional oli (chant) and moʻolelo (stories) also illustrate geographic knowledge and habitat of our native snails. Similarly, the natural science collections of the Bishop Museum tie species to specific locations and habitats. So both Hawaiian traditional knowledge and scientific information work together to offer insight into the diversity and biogeography of land snails.
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