WEBVTT - How Snails Work 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:03.400 Hey, everybody out there in the Pacific Northwest or with 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.000 access to an airport or a car rental place that 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:08.880 can get you to the Pacific Northwest specifically at the 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:13.240 end of January. We'll see you in Seattle, Portland, and 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:14.120 San Francisco. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.320 That's right to. Our new live show for twenty twenty 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.040 four is Seattle, Washington January twenty fourth at the Paramount Theater, 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.080 then Portland at our Homeway from Home at Revolution Hall 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:26.000 in the twenty fifth, and then winding it all up 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.720 at Sketchfest on the twenty six at the Sydney Goldstein Theater. 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:32.879 Very nice. If you want tickets, if you want information, 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:35.400 if you want tickets, you can go to a couple 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.440 of places. You can go to our link tree at 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.240 Linktree slash sysk, and you can go to our home 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:42.879 on the web, stuffishould Know dot com. Click on the 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.199 tour button and it'll take you to all of the 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.280 beautiful places you can go to buy your tickets and 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:49.840 we'll see you guys in January. 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:58.600 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.839 Hey, and welcome to the Slowcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:07.240 Chuck and Jerry's here too. We're just inch and along 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.720 doing things our own way, our own speed, our own time, 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.480 leaving a trail of mucus behind us as we do. 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:19.399 Wow. Inch and a long point five inches per second. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.000 Yeah, it's like that. One guy said life is a highway. 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.039 I want to write it all night long, covering only 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:28.440 an inch. 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:33.440 Was that the parenthetical of that title? 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.960 Yeah, it was. It was you had to read between 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.160 the lines, Yeah, exactly what a great song? 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.559 Or play it backwards that song you think is great? 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:45.759 Yeah, I do, I do. If you take away all 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.320 the bit it's actually a great song. It's very upbeat 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.800 and enthusiastic and very this is a good song. 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:54.440 Who was that? 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:56.960 I don't remember. I think that might have been his 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.160 only song. Although now I've said that, I'm sure he's 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.720 a huge since in Canada or something, and now everybody's 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:02.600 gonna be mad at us. 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:05.400 Yeah, that happens a lot. 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.720 We'll find out. But anyway, whoever you are out there, 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.520 who made that song? For listening bretton cap off to you. 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.040 That's right, Chuck, I picked this one. 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:18.679 He's Canadian. 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:21.680 By the way, I knew it, dude, I know that 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.920 always happened. I don't know, I don't know what's. 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:26.440 His name, Tom Cochrane. 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:28.839 I wanted to say Tom, but I wanted to say 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:30.480 Tom Brocall and I was like, I'm not even going 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:31.240 to bring that up. 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:33.920 And you know what, he's in the Canadian Music Hall 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:34.440 of Fame. 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:35.240 Oh my god. 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:37.920 Oh M, so so much for that. 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:43.480 Okay, at any rate, hats off Tom Cochrane, I think, 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:46.639 is what I was trying to say. Right, So, we're 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.680 doing an episode on snails, which I'm kind of psyched about. 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.680 Our new good friend Allison helped us with this one, 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.160 and believe this is our second one. She's doing great. 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.919 Yeah, was this a listener recommendation? 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:02.080 No, this was a Josh recommendation. 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:04.480 Okay, I didn't know if this was. You know, we 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.360 did some stuff recently with kids in the classroom, like 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:12.520 little virtual appearance appearances for our book stuff kids should know, 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:14.400 uh huh. And I know we got a lot of 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:16.760 ideas and just for some reason, I thought snails might 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:17.440 have been one of those. 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:19.400 Not a single one of those kids came up with 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.520 the idea of snails. It was really sad. 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.320 Kids these days. I don't even know what snails are. 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.400 Snails that was was my pick. And I'm not sure 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:29.640 where it came from. I think I just pulled it 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.200 out of my head. But I'm glad I did, because 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.359 this is one of those things where, I mean, snails 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.720 are everywhere. Everyone knows what a snail is, like, it's 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.080 just a part of living on Earth. You know about snails. 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.480 And yet what Alison turned up and I wasn't aware 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.440 of when I selected this, there's actually a bit of 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:55.120 a dearth of information academic information on snails specifically, and 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:57.040 that a lot of what we think we know about 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.200 them is actually just like old yarns that gardeners have 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.960 come up with over the years. So I love topics 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.720 like that, And actually, from researching this, I've come to 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.320 actually really appreciate snails like I Actually I kind of 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:13.560 think they're cute now, just from watching them in some videos. 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.440 Well, I looked up a picture of the and we'll 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.359 talk about these in a little more detail later, but 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:24.960 that giant African snail, and there was one picture of 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:27.640 a woman holding one of these things. Yeah, and I 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:32.880 swear it looked like a bunny rabbit with a turtle shell. 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.320 Weird. No, I've not seen that picture. 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.600 It looked like a bunny I mean it's a snail. Clearly, 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.120 it didn't look that much like a bunny, right, I 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:43.920 wasn't like, what in the world. 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:45.760 Maybe it was eating a bunny? Is that what it was? 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.680 I don't think so, But you were right, Allison was 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.920 keen to point out that malacology, which is someone who 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.880 studies mollusks, it's just I guess there's just not a 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.279 ton of those people out there, so they're just tend 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.240 to be more people studying, you know, fi er, cuter 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:04.200 things than snails. 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.000 I guess, right exactly, And even if you do have 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:12.599 a lot of malacologists, they're studying mollusks, and snails just 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:16.440 make up part of one class of a larger phylum 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.040 of mollusca. They're part of Gastropoda. And it's not just 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:27.720 snails in Gastropoda. We're talking slugs, sea slugs, conks, whelks, limpets. 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:33.200 Basically all snail like creatures are in the Gastropoda class. 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.800 So they're gastropodes, yeah, or gastropods. 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:38.919 Okay, I didn't know how that was pronounced. 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.039 So it's gotta be gastropod, right. 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:43.839 I mean, I think it's gastropod. But would it be 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.320 gastropoda No here' is it one of those weird things 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:48.840 that just flips when you shorten it. 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:54.720 It's that second thing. Okay, great, so I said, Also, Chuck, 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.560 just living on Earth, you're aware of snails, and there's 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:59.800 a reason for that. They've been around for a really, 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:07.000 really long time. They are everywhere. And even if you're 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.920 walking around Antarctica and you look down on the ground, 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.880 you might see a snail waving up to you wearing 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:13.480 a parka. 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.880 Yeah. And even if you know snails, as we will 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:22.040 find out, love moisture, Even if you're in the desert, 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.359 even if you're in Arizona living there in Phoenix, you 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.560 might see a snail. Yeah, because there's still random water 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:29.160 here and there. 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:31.720 Yeah. Plus also some of them have evolved to like 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.080 really hang on to their water better than other times, 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.919 so they can survive in the desert. It's just nuts. 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.920 They're everywhere. As a matter of fact, they think that 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:46.480 they there's about one hundred and fifty thousand gastropod species 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.520 in total. Remember that includes slugs and all that stuff. 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.640 But they think snail species are between thirty thousand and 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.040 thirty five thousand, and I mean, you know, we think 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:01.119 of snails as typically like the little garden snail, maybe 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.880 the s car ghost snail. I think that's the Roman snail, 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:08.599 if I'm not mistaken, But there are all sorts of snails. 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:13.640 You mentioned the giant African land snail. Those things get 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.200 I saw that they get to be about the size 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.080 of a human fists or bigger. That's a big snail. 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:21.840 But on the other end, there's another type of snail 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:25.160 that they recently discovered and I think Vietnam and Cambodia 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:27.800 on the walls of caves, and they can fit inside 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.320 like a grain of sand, they're that small. But if 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:32.640 you look at them under a microscope, they are very 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:33.600 clearly snails. 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.360 Yeah. I saw about five hundred native species to North America, 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.360 and we're generally going to be talking about, you know, 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.920 sort of your average land snail, but there are snails 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.880 that live exclusively in the water under the sea. It 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:52.480 would you know, there's just no way we could talk 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.400 about all the snails, So we're going to mainly concentrate 0:07:55.480 --> 0:08:00.080 on the kind that leave that mucasi trail on the sidewalk. 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.160 Right, Like, we could probably get through thirty four thousand 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.920 species today, but definitely not thirty five. 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.240 Thousand, that's right, So we're not getting dry. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.920 Okay. So the other thing that's kind of like a 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.880 bummer about snail species is that as long as we've 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:20.400 been scientifically paying attention to snails, we've recorded more than 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:27.880 four hundred extinctions of snail species. And there's an atlantic 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.160 short documentary I think it's like twelve minutes long. I 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:35.000 think it's called Goodbye Snails, and it's set in Hawaii 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:42.400 where they're experiencing this crazy mass extinction of their native 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.480 snail species that exists nowhere else in the world. And 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.920 it's a really kind of a tense little documentary. But 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.480 the people who are trying to rescue these snail species 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.600 and prevent them from extinction are really doing some amazing 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:56.360 work over there. 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.840 Yeah, there's about a thousand of them that are lands 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.520 now alone that are endangered right now. So that's that's 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.840 a lot of species to be in trouble. So that's 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.520 that's no good because as we will see, they can 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.240 there can be invasive snails, and they can do some 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.000 harm to the garden, but they also do a lot 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.120 of great things for your garden and for the world. 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.880 Yeah, leave the snails alone. 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:22.319 You read them, I have. 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.920 Like once or twice. I'm not crazy about them, No, 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:27.800 they're not. I'm not an S cargo fan. I'm a 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:29.800 fan of the s cargo joke though. 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:34.400 Right, which is look at that S cargo? 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.600 Is that what it was? What a snail painted an 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:38.920 ass on the side of his car? 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.319 That's right, that's a great elementary school kid joke. 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.319 Yep, that's wonderful. I was. 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.480 Trying to remember if I've ever I feel like I 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.360 might have tried it one time, many many many years ago, 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:58.600 because I do remember seeing snails floating in a buttery 0:09:58.679 --> 0:09:59.800 solution on a plate. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:00.280 M hm. 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.280 And I think that was a little tiny. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.160 Tong yeah, that's involved. 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.800 Yeah, but I really had a very very faint memory. 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.440 So if I did try it, I don't know under 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.520 what circumstance it was, but it was a long time ago, 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.240 and it's not something i'd really be into now. 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.880 They even have like a specialized plate for serving them, 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:22.960 and it basically doubles as like a doubled egg serving 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:25.040 plate too. It's like, you know, got a bunch of 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:26.800 depressions in it that the snails sit in. 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.080 Right, I'd rather have a double legg You can also 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:35.400 eat snail eggs. They call it white caviar. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.920 it's a thing. There's a I think it's like one 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:43.840 hundred and thirty bucks for about one point seventy five ounces. 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.920 Wow. Wow, well that's a lot of snail eggs now 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:47.679 that I think about it. 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:50.720 Yeah, it seems like it. I mean, it looks like 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.720 it comes a little ten like caviar. But although I 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.319 do love caviar, now I don't think I would try 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:58.240 snail caviar. 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.520 Okay, I'll accept that answer. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.599 And I know I've talked about a new wish to 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.080 caviare just the past couple of years. So was it 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.440 something I ever had until semi recently? 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:12.120 But now you have it at dinner every night. 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.120 Just you've heard an avocado toast every morning. I just 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.800 have caviar toast. Cut it all over the biggest piece 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:19.800 of sour dough I can. 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:21.040 With gold flakes on top. 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:24.920 All right, Should we talk about the body of a snail? 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.560 Yeah? I feel like we kind of have to because 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:31.600 there's a lot of misconceptions people have about snails, including me, 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:33.000 as far as their body goes. 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.520 Yeah, I mean, we can talk about their shell for 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.400 a little bit. They have that well, we'll talk about 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:45.320 the shell kind of threw out. It's obviously a protective device. 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:50.559 Snail can pull themselves back into that shell, and they 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:55.120 can actually put a little I think it's called an epigram, 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.440 and that is like a it's like a front door, 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.200 basically a temporary front door that they can put on 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:05.320 the whole of that shell. So if you ever pick 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:09.120 up a snail shell and it's covered with something, that 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.760 is a temporary front door that a snail uses to 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.839 keep people like you from poking around into that snail shell. 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.240 Yeah, and I saw that some of them have denticles 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:21.840 on their like sharp kind of tooth like projections, so 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.280 that if a predator tries to come in there after them, 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.240 they'll get all torn up. Oh. 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:28.000 On the epigram, yeah. 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:30.960 It's like those reverse tire damage things that like a 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:33.120 car rental parking lot. It's like that. 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.240 From what I understand, that's pretty cool. And it also 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.800 keeps some moist because what a snail does not want 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.439 to do is dry out, because once again, a snail 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.840 is basically a slug with a helmet on. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.240 Right, So I'd like to talk a little bit about 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:54.559 the misconceptions of how the snail body is arranged. If 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:59.120 we can, let's do it. Inside that shell is the 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.760 actual body of the snail. What we see as the 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:07.240 head in the in the tail is actually the head, true. 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:09.719 But what looks like the tail is actually like the 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.360 heel of its foot. That's what it's moving around on. 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.760 Is its foot, right, it sing exactly, And so above 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:19.920 on top of that foot is the whole body and 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.199 all that is encased in the shell. And what's weird 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.280 is there's one opening that the what do you say 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:27.720 covers the opening. 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.040 The I think it's called an epigram. Okay, I'm sorry, 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.920 I've been saying epigram, epiphram, epi. 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.359 Okay, gotcha. So what the epifram covers is called the aperture. 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:42.240 And on land snails there's one aperture. There's one way in, 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.679 one way out. And because all of their body is 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:48.560 tucked up in the shell, they still got to poop, 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:50.160 they've still got to breathe, they still have to do 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.840 all the stuff that requires the outside atmosphere. And so 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.440 what they've done is they've figured out how to double 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.760 their bodies around so that their head and their including 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:04.400 their anus are basically right next to one another at 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.240 the aperture at the opening of their show. 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.160 Yeah, kind of like on top of their head. And 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:14.520 this is something called torsion, which means to twist. You know, 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.240 if you've heard of something, you've heard of torsion before. Probably. 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.480 Yeah, Chubby Checker was going to call his dance the torsion, 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.880 and he's like, this doesn't have the right ring. Let's 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.480 do the torsion, right. A traveler from the future came 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.320 back in time and told him, no, we should call 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.600 this the twist. Rocked out the high school dance and 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:34.760 that was history. 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:38.040 That's pretty good. Did you think of that one beforehand? 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:42.680 No? No, okay, no I didn't. I've just gotten that 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:43.720 good this late in the year. 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:45.520 I love it. 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:46.720 So. Yeah. 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.640 That body basically doubles back one hundred and eighty degrees 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:55.800 on top of itself. And there's a lot of debate. 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.720 I mean, should we get into that, like the great 0:14:58.760 --> 0:14:59.480 torsion debate. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.400 Yeah, we can at least touch on it. Sure, it's 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:06.560 almost impenetrable if you're not a malacologist. 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.600 Yeah, I would say so. So as far as when 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:15.760 torsion emerged, they're not exactly sure, because you can't tell 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.520 from like a fossil whether or not a you know, 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.240 you can find a fossil of a shell, but the 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:23.360 torsion is happening within the shell, so you can't really 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:26.800 tell if it's been torsioned. Is that even a verb? 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:29.600 I don't know torted, I was gonna say torted. I 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:31.880 didn't look it up, though, so I think tort it's right, 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:32.720 let's say torted. 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:34.840 Yeah, I think it's torted. So you can't really tell 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:37.360 if it's been torted by looking at a fossil. And 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:39.480 so there's just been a lot of debate, like obviously 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:44.080 this happened for a reason, no one knows exactly what 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.680 that was. And like you mentioned at the beginning, some 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.040 of the sort of old farmer's tales. One of those 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:54.080 is you might hear some gardening people say, oh, well, 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:59.920 actually they're asymmetry inside that shell provides balance, and that's 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:00.640 it's not true. 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.240 No, no, that's definitely not There's also one that back 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.200 in the day when they were all marine animals, because 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:14.040 land snails evolve from marine aquatic snails, that it was 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.600 a way to keep their their hind quarters, their tails, 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.760 all that stuff from being bitten by a predator. 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.040 Probably it does make. 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.320 Sense, it's probably not it what the two biggest competing 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:32.400 hypothesis are the rotation hypothesis and the asymmetrical hypothesis. And 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.760 the rotational hypothesis the one that's been around since like 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.760 nineteen twenty nine, and it basically says that at some 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:45.720 point in the past, the the snail, some snail mutant 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.400 came along and twisted around during its development and it 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:54.200 became naturally selected because it was advantageous because it allowed 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.360 the snail to retract its head faster, whereas before it 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.880 would have had to retract the tail and then the head. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.480 Now it can retract the head because it's all it 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:03.640 had to retract. 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.000 Yeah, but that was just like a spontaneous thing, right. 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.800 That's that's what they think. But it's just such a 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:14.480 bizarre thing to have happen, especially in a single mutation, 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.680 because again, what we're talking about is during the larval 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:22.919 development a snail's body, it count it moves counterclockwise to 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.000 one hundred and eighty degrees, and so its circulatory and 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.720 nervous system forms a Figure eight inside the shell. It's 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.000 not all just packed in there straight. It's all over 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.920 the place, and because of that weird torsion thing, the 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.640 entire right side of its anatomy, including its organs, are 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:42.760 just not there. It's all left side organ stuff. It 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.119 all just got moved over toward the inside of the 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.720 shell because the right side is pressed up against the 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.200 shell itself, and it's all because of torsion. And they 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:55.040 just cannot figure out why that would have happened in 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.000 the past. And clearly it could have happened as a 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:01.399 as a like a mutation, and that obviously did, but 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.760 why would it have been naturally selected for for hundreds 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:07.760 of millions of years, which strongly implies that it was 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:09.680 like an advantageous mutation. 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:11.600 Yeah, I would think so, right. 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.160 Yeah, So that's kind of like this debate that's going 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.159 on that that is, I mean, you really have to 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:21.359 understand snail anatomy and evolutionary history to go much further 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.560 in understanding that debate. That's pretty much what I could 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:25.520 glean from the whole thing. 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.520 Yeah, And I would say hesitate even getting into that debate. 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:31.640 If you've had a couple of drinks at the bar 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:34.399 and you're feeling a little squarely and you want to 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:36.320 dive into this hot conversation. 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:38.520 Yeah, I would stare clear, just take a. 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.000 Break and have another drink and just relax. 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.080 Yeah, or maybe it's time for you to go home. 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.600 Right, Yeah, get a car to take you home or 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:48.719 walk or whatever. 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:54.080 Yeah. So that's snails tort and we're not sure exactly why, 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.119 but what we do know the upshot of it is 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:58.640 that their body is double back on itself and there 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.520 there ain't and their head are essentially right next to each. 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:08.280 Other, yes, exactly. They also have a mouth and inside 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.560 that mouth is something called a radula. It has teeth 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:14.320 on it and it's like it's kind of like a tongue, 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.000 and they have you know, if you look at a 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.840 snail and they turn those two little tentacles to look 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:25.040 back at you, that's because they have eyes mounted on 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.880 either one or two pairs of tentacles, and they can 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.360 look at you. They can't hear you, they don't have ears. 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.920 From what I saw, snails are basically deaf. But they 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:37.560 can see you. 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:39.960 They can see you, and depending on the species, there's 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.639 different types of eyes. Some have very simple eyes where 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.520 they can detect changes in light and dark or maybe 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.200 maybe movement. But there's some kinds I think that have 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:55.399 the ability to see you, to focus on you. And 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.440 because they're on the ends of those stalks, they can 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.760 retract the eye themselves in the stalk, and then the 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.679 stalk into the head, and then the head into the shell. 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:07.120 And then when they want to see if danger's gone, 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.000 they can peak one of those stalks out from the shell. 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:11.760 Look around. Isn't that cool? 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:13.000 That's pretty cool? 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:13.760 Yeah? 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:15.879 I love it. And there's also the mantle, and the 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:17.640 mantle will come up quite a bit. And the best 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:21.000 I could figure is that mantle is that area around 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.800 the rim of the shell that connects the foot in 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:25.560 the head to the shell itself, right. 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:29.720 Yeah, And it's also whatever holds all of our organs 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:34.000 and guts in place. That membrane is very analogous to 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.439 the mantle tissue of the snail because it holds all 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.240 the organs in place. But it also does something really important. 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:44.280 It secretes all of the stuff that eventually is built 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:45.720 into the shell itself. 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:46.920 That's right. 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.840 So are we at the shell partner? You think. 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:54.080 You know what? This is a good We're twenty minutes in. 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.040 I think we should take a break, Yeah, because that 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.600