ABSTRACT
This study reports the action of digestive juice of snail Limicalaria flammea on raw starches. This juice exhibited maximum activity at pH 4.0-5.5 and was optimally active at 40-50 °C. About 82.5 % of the original amylasic activity still remained after treatment at 50 °C for 16 h. The digestive juice had a strong digesting ability towards various raw starches and efficiently hydrolyzed raw corn starch at a concentration of 1.0% and pH 5 at 40 °C in a period of 12 h. The rate of hydrolysis of the raw corn and cassava starches were 64.37 % and 42.0 % respectively while that of palmyrah palm was 29.05 %. The analysis of the hydrolyzed products of the raw starches by thin layer chromatography showed the glucose, maltosaccharide and dextrin after 12 h of hydrolysis.