The most endangered of those is Polymita sulphurosa, which is lime green with blue flame patterns around its coils and bright orange and yellow bands across its shell.
But all the Polymita species are strikingly bright and colourful, which is an evolutionary mystery in itself.
“One of the reasons I’m interested in these snails is because they’re so beautiful,” explained evolutionary geneticist and mollusc expert Prof Angus Davison from the University of Nottingham.
The irony, he said, is that this is the reason the snails are so threatened.
“Their beauty attracts people who collect and trade shells. So the very thing that makes them different and interesting to me as a scientist is, unfortunately, what’s endangering them as well.”