snail
dr. dolittle | July 18, 2016 Images of snorkels (arrows) found on Asian Alycaeus snails from Science News.
Scientists have been wondering why Asian Alycaeidae snails have a snorkel that was seemingly functionless. While other snails that live on land have a similar tube with an opening that allows them to breathe while inside the shell, the end of the breathing tube (i.e. snorkel) on the Asian snails appeared to be sealed.
A new study published in Biology Letters shows that the tube of Alycaeus conformis is not sealed after all. They used electron microscopy to examine the snorkel and found around 50 microscopic air…
dr. dolittle | April 3, 2014 Photo Credit: Liew Thor-Seng
Ten new species of snails in the genus Plectostoma have been discovered in the limestone hills of Southeast Asia. Limestone hills are not common in this region, so the individual snail species are often isolated to just one hill. Therefore mining has threatened their existence and several species are already extinct or endangered.
Source:
LiveScience
dr. dolittle | March 18, 2014Here I thought snails were just cute little creatures that liked to dine in my vegetable garden. You can imagine my surprise to learn there are also carnivorous snails....with venom. New research shows that conotoxin, isolated from cone snail venom, can numb pain. Conotoxin is also reportedly 100 times more potent than morphine at treating chronic nerve pain. The added benefit is that it does not appear to be addictive.
The snail to the rescue is the marine carnivorous cone snail common to the Indian Ocean and western Pacific. It hunts by stabbing prey and injecting a venom that paralyzes…
zooillogix | June 3, 2010Turns out casual experimention with a little meth here and there is a good thing, if you're a snail. A paper recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology explains how snails were able to remember negative stimuli longer when under the influence of a bit of speed.
When great pond snails (Lymnaea stagnalis) venture into low oxygen water, they extend a breathing tube above the water's surface. Researchers seperated a bunch of these party snails into two groups and put one sober group in normal water and another in meth-laced water. Then when the snails went to extend their…
sb admin | May 17, 2010So a week back or so, a number of friends read an article about death by rectal eel and immediately thought of me. For those of you who missed the story, it went a little something like this:
* Chinese man gets drunk with friends and passes out
* Friends think it would be hilarious to insert a large living swamp eel into the man's butt while he is unconscious
* Hilarity does not ensue. In fact, the man dies. Chinese doctor says the eel "consumed the man's bowels"
The article was widely reported in major news outlets like CNN and the Times, but I am linking instead to the UK edition of…
edyong | January 19, 2010Deep beneath the ocean's surface lie the "black smokers", undersea chimneys channelling superheated water from below the Earth's crust. Completely devoid of sunlight, they are some of the most extreme environments on the planet. Any creature that can survive their highly acidic water, scorching temperatures and crushing pressures still has to contend with assaults from predatory crabs. What better place, then, to look for the next generation of body armour technology?
The scaly-foot gastropod (Crysomalion squamiferum) was discovered just 9 years ago at an Indian black smoker and it may have…
edyong | July 24, 2009In Lake Alexandrina, New Zealand, a population of snails is under threat from a parasitic flatworm, a fluke aptly known as Microphallus. The fluke chemically castrates its snail host and uses its body as a living incubator for its larvae. But the snails have a weapon against these body-snatching foes - sex.
The New Zealand mud snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum is found throughout island's freshwater habitats. They breed either sexually or asexually through cloning, and the two strategies vary in prevalence throughout the lake. In the shallower waters round its margins, sex is the name of the…
edyong | April 21, 2009For long journeys, the shell of a snail hardly seems like the ideal public transport. That is, of course, unless you're an even smaller snail...
Yasunori Kano from the University of Miyazaki has found that the babies of Neritina asperulata, a tiny snail just 3 millimetres across, hitchhike on the back of a larger species Neritina pulligera. This living bus is about 2 centimetres long, and dwarfs its passengers by more than seven times.
The hitchhiking snail is a special sort of parasite, and one that Kano thinks has never been described before. They don't use their hosts as a snack, a home…
edyong | February 28, 2009Conspiracy theories, TV thrillers and airport novels are full of the idea that the world is secretly run by a hidden society. We have come up with many names for this shadowy cabal of puppet-masters - the Illuminati, the Freemasons, and more. But a better name would be 'parasites'.
Every animal and plant is afflicted by parasites. The vast majority are simple, degenerate creatures, small in size and limited in intelligence. They affect our health and development, and even our behaviour and culture. And by pulling the strings of key species, parasites can change the face of entire habitats.In…
zooillogix | August 21, 2008There's no interesting news. It appears all the world's animals have finally been discovered, their strange mating behaviors documented, and their interest in acting all crazy for YouTube evaporated. But we are undaunted. We will make the logical transition and become a knitting blog.
Once again, we bring you critters from Mochimochi Land complete with their creator's commentary. Past installments here and here.
Evolving Punk
Evolution is still a pretty radical idea - just ask this little Evolving Punk. He recently made the big step onto dry land from the primordial ooze of a dirty toilet.…
zooillogix | March 27, 2008We have brought you the outstanding time lapse photography of Mochimochi Land in the past, but these new works are breathtaking.
No-holds-barred snail on slug rumpus!
"The Great Foot Race!"
Friends below the fold
Reversible chicken and egg. If only life were so easy.
"Beware the Ninjabun...He's covert, sneaky, and hungry!"
"The world's fattest butterfly thinks it might be time for a diet. The flowers agree."
bleimanb | January 15, 2008Any snail enthusiast knows that their favorite creatures' shells follow certain stead-fast rules: They are cone shaped, right handed, and spiral on a single axis logarithmically. Well, let me just tell you what a shock it was to the snail community when scientists recently discovered the Opisthostoma vermiculum in Malaysia. The snail version of James Dean, the Opisthostoma vermiculum's shell breaks all the rules and answers to no one. Do you think you're the boss of it? You're not.
What a Hell's Angel's shell would look like if he wore one...
Seen in the picture above the Opisthostoma…