WEBVTT - How Snails Work 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:07.560 Hey, everybody, if you've ever stepped on a snail and 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.000 didn't feel particularly bad about it, then you should probably 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.200 prepare for that to change. After listening to this episode, 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.080 it turns out that snails aren't just mucusy. They're a 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.400 precious member of your garden club too. So go find 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.000 a snail, share an earbud with them so you can 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:24.640 listen to this episode together. 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:39.880 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.080 Hey, and welcome to the Slowcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.440 Chuck and Jerry's here too. We're just inching along, doing 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.120 things our own way, our own speed, our own time, 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:54.720 leaving a trail of mucus behind us as we do. 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.680 Wow, inch and along point five per second. 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.280 Yeah, it's like that one guy said life is a highway. 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.319 I want to write it all night long, covering only 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:09.720 an inch. 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:14.720 Was that the parenthetical of that title? 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.240 Yeah? It was. It was you had to read between 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.440 the lines, Yeah, exactly, what a great song? 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.839 Or play it backwards? That song you think is great? 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.039 Yeah, I do. I do. If you take away all 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:31.600 the it's actually a great song. It's very upbeaaten enthusiastic 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.080 and very this is a good song. 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:35.720 Who was that? 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.160 I I don't remember. I think that might have been 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.280 his only song. Although now I've said that, I'm sure 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:42.600 he's a huge sensation in Canada or something, and now 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:43.880 everybody's gonna be mad at us. 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:46.679 Yeah, that happens a lot. 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:51.000 We'll find out. But anyway, whoever you are out there, 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.800 who made that song? For listening, Breton cap off to you. 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:58.320 That's right, Chuck, I picked this one. 0:01:59.240 --> 0:01:59.880 He's Canadian. 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.960 I knew it, dude, I knows that always happened. I 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:05.720 don't know. I don't know. 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:07.720 What's his name, Tom Cochrane. 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.119 I wanted to say Tom, but I wanted to say 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:11.760 Tom brokecall and I was like, I'm not even going 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:12.520 to bring that up. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.200 And you know what, he's in the Canadian Music Hall 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:15.720 of Fame. 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:16.520 Oh my god. 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.240 Oh right, So so much for that. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:24.760 Okay at any rate, Hats off Tom Cochrane, I think, 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:25.799 is what I was trying to say. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:26.760 Right, m hm. 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.200 So we're doing an episode on Snails, which I'm kind 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:35.520 of psyched about. Our new good friend Allison helped us 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.280 with this one. I believe this is our second one 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:38.440 and she's doing great. 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.239 Yeah, was this a listener recommendation. 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:43.360 No, this was a Josh recommendation. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:45.720 Okay, I didn't know if this was. You know, we 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.600 did some stuff recently with kids in the classroom, like 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:54.640 little virtual appearance appearances for our book stuff kids should know, huh. 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:56.280 And I know we got a lot of ideas and 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.240 just for some reason, I thought snails might have been 0:02:58.280 --> 0:02:58.679 one of those. 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:00.800 Not a single one of those came up with the 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:02.800 idea of snails. It was really sad. 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:05.639 Kids these days and don't even know what snails are. 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.680 Snails that was was my pick, and I'm not sure 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:10.920 where it came from. I think I just pulled it 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.480 out of my head, but I'm glad I did, because 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.639 this is one of those things where, I mean, snails 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:20.000 are everywhere. Everyone knows what a snail is, like, it's 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.360 just a part of living on earth, you know about snails. 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.760 And yet what Alison turned up and I wasn't aware 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.720 of when I selected this, there's actually a bit of 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:36.400 a dearth of information academic information on snails specifically, and 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:38.280 that a lot of what we think we know about 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.480 them is actually just like old yarns that gardeners have 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.240 come up with over the years. So I love topics 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.000 like that, And actually, from researching this, I've come to 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.600 actually really appreciate snails like I Actually I kind of 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.800 think they're cute now, just from watching them in some videos. 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.520 Well, I looked up a picture of the h and 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:00.520 we'll talk about these in a little more till later, 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:06.000 but that giant African snail, and there was one picture 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:08.720 of a woman holding one of these things. Yeah, and 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:13.240 I swear it looked like a bunny rabbit with a 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:14.160 turtle shell. 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:16.599 Weird. I've not seen that picture. 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.880 It looked like a bunny. I mean, it's a snail, clearly, 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.520 it didn't look that much like a bunny, right or 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:24.840 was it like what in the world? 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.039 Maybe it was eating a bunny? Is that what it was? 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.960 I don't think so. But you were right, Allison was 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:35.200 keen to point out that malacology, which is someone who 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.160 studies molluscs, it's just I guess there's just not a 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.480 ton of those people out there, So there just tend 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.919 to be more people studying, you know, furier, cuter things 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:45.479 than snails. 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.280 I guess, right, exactly. And even if you do have 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:53.880 a lot of malacologists, they're studying mollusks and snails just 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.720 make a part of one class of a larger phylum 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.320 of mollusca. They're part of gastropoe And it's not just 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:10.080 snails in Gastropoda. We're talking slugs, sea slugs, conks, whelks, limpets. Basically, 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:14.479 all snail like creatures are in the Gastropoda class. 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:16.760 So they're gastropodes. 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:18.080 Yeah, or gastropods. 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:20.400 Okay, I didn't know how that was pronounced, So. 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.120 It's gotta be gastropod, right, I. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.680 Mean, I think it's gastropod, but would it be gastropoda? 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:27.120 No? 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:28.839 Here is it one of those weird things that just 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:30.120 flips when you shorten it. 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:36.000 It's that second thing. Okay, great, so I said, Also, Chuck, 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:38.839 just living on Earth, you're aware of snails, and there's 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.080 a reason for that. They've been around for a really, 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:47.880 really long time. They are everywhere, and you can even 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.839 if you're walking around Antarctica and you look down on 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.560 the ground, you might see a snail waving up to 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:54.680 you wearing a parka. 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.160 Yeah. And even if you know, snails, as we will 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:03.320 find out, love moisture, even if you're in the desert, 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.640 even if you're in Arizona. Living there in Phoenix, you 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.839 might see a snail. Yeah, because there's still random water 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:10.440 here and there. 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.000 Yeah. Plus also some of them have evolved to like 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.360 really hang on to their water better than other times, 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.200 so they can survive in the desert. It's just nuts. 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.200 They're everywhere. As a matter of fact, they think that 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:27.760 they there's about one hundred and fifty thousand gastropod species 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.799 in total, remember that includes slugs and all that stuff, 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.760 But they think the snail species are between thirty thousand 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.080 and thirty five thousand. And I mean, you know, we 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.560 think of snails as typically like the little garden snail, 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.320 maybe the s car ghost snail. I think that's the 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:48.840 Roman snail if I'm not mistaken. But there are all 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:53.760 sorts of snails. You mentioned the giant African land snail. 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:56.839 Those things get I saw that they get to be 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.400 about the size of a human fists or bigger. That's 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.440 a big snail. But on the other end, there's another 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.159 type of snail that they recently discovered and I think 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.320 Vietnam and Cambodia on the walls of caves and they 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:11.040 can fit inside like a grain of sand. They're that small. 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.480 But if you look at them under a microscope, they 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:14.880 are very clearly snails. 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:19.640 Yeah, I saw about five hundred native species to North America, 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.640 and we're generally going to be talking about, you know, 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.200 sort of your average land snail, but there are snails 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.160 that live exclusively in the water under the sea. It 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:33.760 would you know, there's just no way we could talk 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.680 about all the snails. So we're going to mainly concentrate 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.360 on the kind that leave that mucasi trail on the. 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.960 Sidewalk, right, Like, we could probably get through thirty four 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.200 thousand species today, but definitely not thirty five. 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.520 Thousand, that's right, So we're not getting dry. 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:54.200 Okay. So the other thing that's kind of like a 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.160 bummer about snail species is that as long as we've 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:01.680 been scientifically paying attention to snails, we've recorded more than 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:09.160 four hundred extinctions of snail species. And there's an Atlantic 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.440 short documentary I think it's like twelve minutes long. I 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:16.280 think it's called Goodbye Snails, and it's set in Hawaii 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:23.680 where they're experiencing this crazy mass extinction of their native 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.760 snail species that exist nowhere else in the world. And 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.200 it's a really kind of a tense little documentary. But 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.760 the people who are trying to rescue these snail species 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.880 and prevent them from extinction are really doing some amazing 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:37.680 work over there. 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.040 Yeah, there's about a thousand of them that are land 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.920 snails alone that are endangered right now. So that's a 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.440 lot of species to be in trouble. So that's no 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.199 good because as we will see, they can there can 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.000 be invasive snails, and they can do some harm to 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:54.600 the garden, but they also do a lot of great 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.400 things for your garden and for the world. 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.760 Yeah, leave the snails alone. 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:02.240 You ever read them? 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:06.200 I have, like once or twice. I'm not crazy about them, No, 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.080 they're not. I'm not an S Cargo fan. I'm a 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.079 fan of that S Cargo joke though. 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:15.600 Right, which is a look at that S cargo? 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.880 Is that what it was? What a snail painted an 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:20.240 ass on the side of his car? 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.600 That's right. That's a great elementary school kid joke. 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.600 Yep, that's wonderful. I was. 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.760 Trying to remember if I've ever I feel like I 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:33.640 might have tried it one time, many many many years ago, 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:39.880 because I do remember seeing snails floating in a buttery 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.840 solution on a plate and I think that was a 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:48.480 little tiny tong Yeah, that's involved, But I really had 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.000 a very very faint memory. So if I did try it, 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:53.920 I don't know under what circumstance it was, but it 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.400 was a long time ago, and it's it's not something 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:57.520 i'd really be into now. 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.840 So you've been have like a specialized plate for serving them, 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.240 and it basically doubles is like a doubled eggs serving 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:06.320 plate too. It's like, you know, got a bunch of 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:08.160 depressions in it that the snails sit in. 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.360 Right, I'd rather have a double legg You can also 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:16.640 eat snail eggs. They call it white caviar. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:20.200 it's a thing. There's a I think it's like one 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:25.160 hundred and thirty bucks for about one point seventy five ounces. 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.200 Wow. Wow, well that's a lot of snail eggs now 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:28.960 that I think about it. 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.000 Yeah, it seems like it. I mean, it looks like 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.000 it comes a little tin like caviar. But although I 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.560 do love caviar, now, I don't think I would try 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:39.520 snail caviar. 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.800 Okay, okay, I'll accept that answer. 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.400 And I know I talked about a newish to caviar 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:49.600 just the past couple of years. So was it something 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:51.920 I ever had until semi recently, But. 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:53.400 Now you have it at dinner every night. 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.400 Just you've heard an avocado toast every morning. I just 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.480 have caviar toastut all over the biggest peace of sour 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:01.080 dough I can. 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:02.320 With gold flakes on top. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.199 All right, Should we talk about the body of a snail? 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:08.800 Yeah, I feel like we kind of have to because 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.880 there's a lot of misconceptions people have about snails, including me, 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:14.280 as far as their body goes. 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.800 Yeah, I mean we can talk about their shell for 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.680 a little bit. They have that. Well, we'll talk about 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:26.600 the shell kind of through out. It's obviously a protective device. 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.800 Snail can pull themselves back into that shell, and they 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:36.400 can actually put a little I think it's called an epigram, 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:41.160 and that is like a it's like a front door. Basically, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.480 it's a temporary front door that they can put on 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:46.600 the whole of that shell. So if you ever pick 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.400 up a snail shell and it's covered with something, that 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.040 is a temporary front door that a snail uses to 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.080 keep people like you from poking around into that snail shell. 0:11:57.280 --> 0:11:59.480 Yeah, and I saw that some of them have denticles 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.679 on their life like sharp kind of tooth like projections, 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:04.920 so that if a predator tries to come in there 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.960 after them, they'll get all torn up. Oh. On the epigram, yeah, 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.240 it's like those reverse tire damage things that like a 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.439 car rental parking lot. It's like that. 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.560 From what I understand, that's pretty cool. And it also 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.079 keeps some moist because what a snail does not want 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.720 to do is dry out, because once again, a snail 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.120 is basically a slug with a helmet on. 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.520 Right, So I'd like to talk a little bit about 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.840 the misconceptions of how the snail body is arranged, if 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:36.400 we can. 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:37.880 Let's do it. 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.120 Inside that shell is the actual body of the snail. 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:47.080 What we see as the head in the tail is 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.080 actually the head, true. But what looks like the tail 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.120 is actually like the heel of its foot. That's what 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:57.199 it's moving around on. Is its foot, right, it's single 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.320 foot exactly, and so above on top of that is 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.960 the whole body and all that is encased in the shell. 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:07.040 And what's weird is there's one opening that the what'd 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:09.000 you say covers the opening. 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.320 The I think it's called an epigram. Okay, I'm sorry, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.920 I've been saying epigram, epiphram, epifray, diaphram. 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.640 Okay, gotcha. So what the epifram covers is called the aperture. 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.520 And on land snails, there's one aperture. There's one way in, 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.920 one way out. And because all of their body is 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.839 tucked up in the shell, they still got to poop, 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:31.440 they've still got to breathe, they still have to do 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:36.120 all the stuff that requires the outside atmosphere. And so 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.720 what they've done is they've figured out how to double 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.520 their bodies around so that their head and their tail, 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.920 including their anus, are basically right next to one another 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:47.560 at the aperture at the opening of their shell. 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:51.440 Yeah, kind of like on top of their head. And 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.760 this is something called torsion, which means to twist. You know, 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.520 if you've heard of something, you've heard of torsion before. Probably. 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.760 Yeah, Chubby Checker was going to call his dance the torsion, 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:05.160 and he's like, this doesn't have the right ring. Let's 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.760 do the torsion, right, A traveler from the future came 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.600 back in time and told him, no, we should call 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.880 this the twist. Rocked out the high school dance, and 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:16.040 that was history. 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.640 That's pretty good. You did you think of that one beforehand? 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.960 No? No, okay, no I didn't. I've just gotten that 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:25.000 good this late in the year. 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:30.480 I love it. So. Yeah, that body basically doubles back 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.640 one hundred and eighty degrees on top of itself. And 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.200 there's a lot of debate. I mean, should we get 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.760 into that, like the great torsion debate. 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.680 Yeah, we can at least touch on it. Sure, it's 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:47.080 almost impenetrable if you're not a malacologist. 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.920 Yeah, I would say so. So as far as when 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:57.000 torsion emerged, they're not exactly sure because you can't tell 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.720 from like a fossil whether or not a you know, 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.520 you can find a fossil of a shell, but the 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:04.640 torsion is happening within the shell, so you can't really 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.120 tell if it's been torsioned. Is that even a verb? 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.880 I don't know, torted, I was gonna say torted. I 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:13.160 didn't look it up, though, So I think tort it's right, 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:13.960 let's say torted. 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.120 Yeah, I think it's torted. So you can't really tell 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.640 if it's been torted by looking at a fossil. And 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:20.720 so there's just been a lot of debate, like, obviously 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:25.360 this happened for a reason. No one knows exactly what 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:27.960 that was. And like you mentioned at the beginning, some 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.320 of the sort of old farmer's tails. One of those 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.360 is you might hear some gardening people say, oh, well, 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:41.320 actually they're asymmetry inside that shell provides balance, and that's 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:41.920 just not true. 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:46.520 No, No, that's definitely not There's also one that back 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:50.480 in the day when they were all marine animals, because 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:55.320 land snails evolve from marine aquatic snails, that it was 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:59.080 a way to keep their hind quarters, their tails, all 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:03.720 that stuff from being bitten by a predator. Probably it 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:06.640 does make sense, it's probably not it what the two 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:13.240 biggest competing hypothesis are the rotation hypothesis and the asymmetrical hypothesis. 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.880 And the rotational hypothesis the one that's been around since 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:19.920 like nineteen twenty nine, and it basically says that at 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:26.520 some point in the past, the the snail, some snail 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:31.320 mutant came along and twisted around during its development and 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:35.080 it became naturally selected because it was advantageous because it 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.560 allowed the snail to retract its head faster, whereas before 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.720 it would have had to retract the tail and then 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.400 the head. Now it can retract the head because it's 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:44.840 all it had to retract. 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.760 Yeah, but that was just like a spontaneous thing, right, That's. 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:50.840 What the that's what they think. But it's just such 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:55.760 a bizarre thing to have happen, especially in a single mutation, 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.960 because again, what we're talking about is during the larval 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:04.439 development an body, it count it moves counterclockwise to one 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.639 hundred and eighty degrees, and so its circulatory and nervous 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:11.119 system forms a figure eight inside the shell. It's not 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.760 all just packed in there straight. It's all over the place. 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:18.080 And because of that weird torsion thing, the entire right 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.680 side of its anatomy, including its organs, are just not there. 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.600 It's all left side organ stuff. It all just got 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.240 moved over toward the inside of the shell because the 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:31.000 right side is pressed up against the shell itself, and 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.560 it's all because of torsion. And they just cannot figure 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:37.119 out why that would have happened in the past. And 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.960 clearly it could have happened as a as a like 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:43.439 a mutation that obviously did, but why would it have 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:47.000 been naturally selected for for hundreds of millions of years, 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.960 which strongly implies that it was like an advantageous mutation. 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:54.080 Yeah, I would think so, right, Yeah, so that's. 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.639 Kind of like this debate that's going on that that is, 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.280 I mean, you really have to understand snail at tom 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.840 me and evolutionary history to go much further in understanding 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.280 that debate. That's pretty much what I could glean from 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:06.800 the whole thing. 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.800 Yeah, and I would say hesitate even getting into that debate. 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:12.920 If you've had a couple of drinks at the bar 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:15.679 and you're feeling a little squarely and you want to 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.200 dive into this hot conversation. 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:19.800 Yeah, I would staer clear, just take a. 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.280 Break and have another drink and just relax. 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:25.359 Yeah, or maybe it's time for you to go home. 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:28.840 Right, yeah, get a car to take you home, or 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:30.000 walk or whatever. 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:34.359 Yeah. So that's very careful. Snails tort and we're not 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.040 sure exactly why, but what we do know the upshot 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.119 of it is that their body is double back on 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:43.400 itself and there their anus and their head are essentially 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:44.840 right next to each other. 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.679 Yes, exactly. They also have a mouth and inside that 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:53.480 mouth is something called a radula. It's a it has 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:55.040 teeth on it, and it's like a it's kind of 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.879 like a tongue, and they have You know, if you 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.320 look at a snail and they turn those two little 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.520 tentacles to look back at you, that's because they have 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:08.280 eyes mounted on either one or two pairs of tentacles, 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.639 and they can look at you. They can't hear you. 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.800 They don't have ears. From what I saw, snails are 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.840 basically deaf. But they can see you. 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.240 They can see you, and depending on the species, there's 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:23.920 different types of eyes. Some have very simple eyes where 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.800 they can detect changes in light and dark or maybe 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:31.480 maybe movement. But there's some kinds I think that have 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:36.679 the ability to see you, to focus on you. And 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:39.720 because they're on the ends of those stalks, they can 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.040 retract the eyes themselves in the stalk, and then the 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.960 stalk into the head, and then the head into the shell, 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:48.400 and then when they want to see if danger's gone, 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.280 they can peak one of those stalks out from the shell. 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:53.040 Look around. Isn't that cool? 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.320 That's pretty cool? Yeah, I love it. And there's also 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:58.440 the mantle, and the mantle will come up quite a bit, 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:00.960 and the best I could figures that may mantle is 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.440 that area around the rim of the shell that connects 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:06.840 the foot in the head to the shell itself, right. 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:11.000 Yeah, and it's also whatever holds all of our organs 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:15.280 and guts in place. That membrane is very analogous to 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.719 the mantle tissue of the snail because it holds all 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.520 the organs in place, but it also does something really important. 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.560 It secretes all of the stuff that eventually is built 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:27.000 into the shell itself. 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:28.280 That's right. 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.440 So are we at the shell partner? 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.560 You think you know what? This is a good We're 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:36.920 twenty minutes in. I think we should take a break, yeah, 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.520 because that shell formation is quite a cliffhanger. Okay, and 0:20:40.600 --> 0:21:07.679 we'll be right back after this, all right, So we 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:09.840 promised to talk to you a little bit about the shell. 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:14.720 A snail shell is beautiful. You should never ever ever 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:20.560 smash a snail shell or a snail because that's animal 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:22.840 cruelty and it's a terrible thing to do, so just 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.399 don't do it. Right, But it is basically there's a 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:28.760 little bit of protein in there, but it's mainly something 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.640 called calcium carbonate, and it is, like you said earlier, 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:37.440 secreted by that mantle tissue, and it builds up over time. 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:40.159 If you look at sort of the center part of 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:43.359 that shell. That's the oldest part of the shell. You 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.199 can tell a snail's age by how big that shell is. 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:48.640 And that's also the hardest part of the shell because 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:51.639 it's been around longer. So they just keep adding material 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:56.040 along that outer edge little by little as it expands outward. 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:59.280 And that is why a like the outer edge of 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.000 a snail shell will be much more you know, sort 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:04.280 of breakable than the inside harder part. 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.840 That makes sense. So the oldest part is the closest 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:08.919 to the to the center. 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:10.680 Yeah, apparently. 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:14.119 Also I didn't realize this. They're born with a tiny 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:18.160 shell already attached. They just grow it over time by secrete. 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:19.880 Starter starter shell exactly and then cut. 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:24.600 Yeah, they're born like little tiny baby snails like that preformationism, 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.200 uh theory from our things we used to believe before 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:29.840 the Scientific Method episode. 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:30.800 That's right. 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.359 So I also said, Chuck, the mantle holds the mantle 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:37.520 tissue holds all the the important guts and stuff like 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:42.200 that in place. And the way that snails breathe is 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.440 through the mantle cavity. They have blood vessels in there, 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:50.200 but they breathe using kind of like a primitive. I 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:51.919 don't want to say long. I think that's kind of 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.480 a stretch. But basically they have an opening that. 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:56.280 It's called a lung. I've seen it called the lung 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:57.000 in diagrams. 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:00.600 Okay, so I've also seen it called a new numastome, 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:04.080 and it's essentially a breathing port that they can open 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:08.000 and close using their muscles that takes in air and 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:11.040 exhales air. But it's pretty neat and it's right there 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:13.680 next to their head, right there at the aperture where 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:15.560 everything else that needs to be outside is. 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:20.120 Yeah, and they can if you're talking about sea snails, 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:22.080 Like I said, we're not going to get two into them, 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:25.520 but they can have similar body parts in terms of breathing, 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:28.720 or they can also have gills kind of upfront as well. 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:31.840 Yeah. So one of the things snails are most famous 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:37.720 for is there mucus right Yeah, that is apparently secreted 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:40.240 by the foot, And as the foot moves along, it's 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:42.840 just a series of muscles that just kind of propel 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:47.000 as they ripple, propel the snail along, but they lay 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:49.600 down a trail of mucus that does a lot of 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:52.760 different things. For one, it allows the snail to do 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:56.679 some Spider man esque moves, like just crawl right up 0:23:56.720 --> 0:24:00.160 the side of a building because it's very strong. 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:03.040 It's glue like, Yeah, but it can be it's funny 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:04.960 because it can be glue like or act as a 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:07.800 lubricant exactly, which is pretty remarkable. 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:11.920 Yeah. So yeah, it also separates the snail from the 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:15.399 rest of the world that it's running over. Yeah, you know, 0:24:15.640 --> 0:24:18.800 it's strong like glue, but it also allows the snail 0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:21.919 to move smoothly, and it also protects the snail's body 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:26.200 from sharp things that it might be crawling over slowly 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:31.520 crawling over. And it also keeps the moisture locked inside 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:34.439 so much so that snail mucin, as we'll see, has 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:37.560 been used for millennia as like kind of a skin thing. 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:40.560 If you have very dry skin and you can get 0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:44.600 your hands on snail mucan or mucous, it will cure 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:45.320 your dry skin. 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:49.760 Yeah, I mean that's what keeps the I mean that 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:52.400 and other things is what keeps that snail moist. So 0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:56.119 if it's keeping the snail alive, then imagine what it 0:24:56.119 --> 0:25:00.280 can do for your crow's feet exactly. I only think 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:04.840 we said what was actually made of. It's enzymes, peptides, proteins, 0:25:06.160 --> 0:25:11.359 trace minerals, and it's it's pretty remarkable stuff. It's you know, 0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:13.399 the tailtale sign is when you see that stuff on 0:25:13.440 --> 0:25:17.280 the sidewalk, and just the term snail trail itself, that 0:25:17.359 --> 0:25:22.240 sort of snotty, glistening, shiny snail trail is you know, 0:25:22.280 --> 0:25:25.719 it's become sort of part of the lexicon to you know, 0:25:25.800 --> 0:25:28.240 as a stand in for other things at times. 0:25:28.520 --> 0:25:31.760 So yeah, for sure. So one of the other things 0:25:31.800 --> 0:25:37.160 that the snail trail, the mucous trail does is it says, hey, sailor, 0:25:37.520 --> 0:25:40.840 come come this way, right, because it's one way that 0:25:40.880 --> 0:25:44.639 snails find one another to mate, which is surprising that 0:25:44.680 --> 0:25:48.640 they mate because they're hermaphroditic. They all snails, or most 0:25:48.680 --> 0:25:51.480 species of land snails are equipped with both male and 0:25:51.520 --> 0:25:56.280 female sex organs. But and when they come together to mate, 0:25:57.600 --> 0:25:59.879 it's there's no telling who's who or who's doing what, 0:26:00.200 --> 0:26:02.639 because in the end both of them often come away 0:26:02.680 --> 0:26:04.200 with fertilized eggs. 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:09.280 Yeah, I mean, to me, this section is the most 0:26:09.280 --> 0:26:14.000 remarkable stuff about snails. How they reproduce is just amazing. 0:26:15.280 --> 0:26:18.719 They are hermaphroditic because and it just makes sense, if 0:26:18.760 --> 0:26:22.120 you're moving point five inches per second, you would die 0:26:22.119 --> 0:26:25.560 out as a species if you if like a male 0:26:25.640 --> 0:26:27.719 had to search for a female or the other way around. 0:26:28.600 --> 0:26:32.400 So they basically just double their chances of finding somebody 0:26:32.480 --> 0:26:35.280 within the you know, ten feet or so that they're 0:26:35.520 --> 0:26:38.760 they're wandering around. I mean they move more than that 0:26:38.760 --> 0:26:41.320 within a lifetime, obviously, but you know, if it's that 0:26:41.400 --> 0:26:42.560 time of year, which is what. 0:26:42.680 --> 0:26:45.880 Like autumn, sure, autumn and spring. 0:26:46.480 --> 0:26:50.520 Autumn and spring, they're gonna wander around, they're gonna find 0:26:50.680 --> 0:26:54.720 another snail. They're gonna dance around each other, and that 0:26:54.840 --> 0:26:59.160 just means very slowly circle each other for I saw 0:26:59.400 --> 0:27:02.720 four to six hours. I saw. The whole thing can 0:27:02.760 --> 0:27:06.320 take up to twelve hours. It's a very obviously as 0:27:06.320 --> 0:27:08.160 you would imagine, a very slow process. 0:27:08.240 --> 0:27:11.360 It is slow, but it's really involved, like they are 0:27:11.480 --> 0:27:14.440 really into it. While they're they're going at. 0:27:14.280 --> 0:27:17.280 It, yeah, I mean they're they're and this is before 0:27:17.280 --> 0:27:18.880 they're going at it. This is when they're just sort 0:27:18.920 --> 0:27:21.439 of like sizing each other up. They're getting their steam, 0:27:21.520 --> 0:27:26.239 they're touching tentacles, they're biting each other's lips. Things are 0:27:26.240 --> 0:27:29.960 getting really pretty hot and heavy in there. And then 0:27:30.280 --> 0:27:33.840 they have something that is amazing, and I don't know 0:27:33.840 --> 0:27:37.239 if any other animal that has something like this. They 0:27:37.280 --> 0:27:39.960 have something called a love what they call a love dart. 0:27:41.240 --> 0:27:44.080 A love dart only forms after the first mating, so 0:27:44.119 --> 0:27:46.320 you have to have at least a little bit of 0:27:46.480 --> 0:27:50.439 sexual experience to even form a love dart. Sure, they 0:27:50.520 --> 0:27:52.600 take about a week to form, and you don't always 0:27:52.600 --> 0:27:56.240 have to have one to mate, because if you've used 0:27:56.320 --> 0:27:59.560 up your love dart and then you know within the 0:27:59.600 --> 0:28:02.160 week you want to go at it again, you can 0:28:02.160 --> 0:28:05.320 still do that. It's not necessary for reproduction, but it 0:28:05.440 --> 0:28:09.359 helps in reproduction. They form in the dart sack and 0:28:09.720 --> 0:28:12.240 is stored in a dart sack, and if you look 0:28:12.240 --> 0:28:14.360 at it, it's a little It is a little dart. 0:28:14.400 --> 0:28:18.240 It's got this little sharp harpoon like tip and they actually, 0:28:18.800 --> 0:28:22.000 it says they shoot it, but it doesn't like fly 0:28:22.119 --> 0:28:24.400 through the air. It's more like a they stab one 0:28:24.400 --> 0:28:25.000 another with it. 0:28:25.080 --> 0:28:28.360 Oh, I imagine it like ew and then just sailing 0:28:28.400 --> 0:28:30.240 a couple feet and then spraying. 0:28:30.920 --> 0:28:33.040 That would be great. It's more like it's stabbing. But 0:28:33.480 --> 0:28:37.760 apparently it's very imprecise. This hydraulic pressure builds up as 0:28:37.800 --> 0:28:40.280 they circle and bite each other's lips and then they 0:28:40.280 --> 0:28:43.320 shoot this thing out at each other and it can 0:28:43.400 --> 0:28:45.080 I think about a third of the time it doesn't 0:28:45.080 --> 0:28:47.200 even do it it's intended to do, which we'll get 0:28:47.240 --> 0:28:49.920 to in a sect, but it can pierce organs. It 0:28:49.960 --> 0:28:52.240 can go all the way through the head and out 0:28:52.280 --> 0:28:58.120 the other side. So it's really crazy. It's a weird adaptation. 0:28:58.640 --> 0:29:01.720 Yeah, no, it's super weird. And the I think what's 0:29:02.120 --> 0:29:04.600 most weird about it to me is there's other animals 0:29:04.680 --> 0:29:08.040 that do that to deliver sperm. That's not what the 0:29:08.080 --> 0:29:12.240 snails are doing. These love darts deliver other hormones that 0:29:12.440 --> 0:29:15.880 help protect the sperm as it makes its way to 0:29:15.920 --> 0:29:21.400 the eggs to fertilize. It's like a really clumsy, superfluous 0:29:21.600 --> 0:29:25.080 extra step that, like you said, doesn't even like they 0:29:25.480 --> 0:29:27.280 miss a lot of the time. They still manage to 0:29:27.320 --> 0:29:30.040 fertilize eggs. It's just a very strange thing that they do. 0:29:30.120 --> 0:29:36.520 But it's part of this really long, really slimy courtship mating, 0:29:37.080 --> 0:29:40.040 you know, process that they get involved in. And then 0:29:40.080 --> 0:29:44.080 the sex itself is like just one rubs its foot 0:29:44.080 --> 0:29:45.720 against the other foot and there you go. 0:29:46.480 --> 0:29:49.840 Right and they say who's pregnant which, and they go, 0:29:50.080 --> 0:29:51.160 I don't know, Yeah, maybe. 0:29:50.960 --> 0:29:52.160 Both of them, Yeah, both of us. 0:29:52.800 --> 0:29:53.760 Actually can it be both? 0:29:53.840 --> 0:29:55.960 Yeah, that's what I'm saying, that both both can walk 0:29:56.000 --> 0:29:57.719 away with fertilized eggs after this. 0:29:58.840 --> 0:30:01.680 Yeah, and they can lay. I think they can hatch 0:30:01.880 --> 0:30:06.160 up to four hundred and fifty eggs per year, and 0:30:07.200 --> 0:30:09.680 that doesn't take very long. Actually, right in the gestation 0:30:09.800 --> 0:30:11.600 period it can be like really short. 0:30:11.640 --> 0:30:14.719 Right for some species, especially in captivity, it can be 0:30:14.840 --> 0:30:17.880 twenty four hours. Others it seems like the outside is 0:30:17.920 --> 0:30:19.880 four weeks, and usually in the while, it's like two 0:30:19.880 --> 0:30:21.200 to four weeks for gestation. 0:30:22.240 --> 0:30:25.800 Yeah, and once those little guys are born, they may 0:30:25.840 --> 0:30:28.080 immediately start eating the rest of the eggs as their 0:30:28.080 --> 0:30:28.600 first meal. 0:30:29.120 --> 0:30:31.840 Yeah. It's kind of a bummer, especially because leading up 0:30:31.880 --> 0:30:33.960 to it, it's so cute, this little tiny snail with 0:30:34.000 --> 0:30:36.480 its little tiny shells inside its egg, and it starts 0:30:36.520 --> 0:30:39.840 tapping its way out until it cracks through the egg. 0:30:39.920 --> 0:30:43.520 And then yeah, it gruesomely eats its siblings very quickly. 0:30:43.680 --> 0:30:46.800 Sometimes it'll eat smaller siblings that have already hatched, not 0:30:46.960 --> 0:30:50.520 just the eggs. What I didn't realize though, is that 0:30:51.000 --> 0:30:56.400 some and that's actually not all snail species. That's ones 0:30:56.400 --> 0:30:58.520 that will eat eggs, but for the most part they'll 0:30:58.520 --> 0:30:59.480 eat just vegetation. 0:31:00.400 --> 0:31:01.400 Yeah. 0:31:01.520 --> 0:31:06.520 The snail parent will often stay nearby to provide protection 0:31:06.680 --> 0:31:10.040 for the young snail hatchlings for a little. 0:31:09.840 --> 0:31:12.440 While they hang out for a while, right, Yeah. 0:31:11.960 --> 0:31:14.160 I did not realize though, I thought it was pretty cool. 0:31:14.400 --> 0:31:16.120 Yeah, they can. They can hang out for up to 0:31:16.200 --> 0:31:19.840 three months together while the parents are kind of protecting them. 0:31:21.240 --> 0:31:23.080 And like you said, they're born with that little baby 0:31:23.080 --> 0:31:26.600 shell and just gets bigger and bigger. They did we 0:31:26.640 --> 0:31:27.920 talk about how long they can live. 0:31:28.360 --> 0:31:30.600 No, we didn't. It's pretty spectacular. 0:31:31.240 --> 0:31:32.880 Yeah, I mean in the wild they can live up 0:31:32.920 --> 0:31:35.479 to five years, which that shocked me quite frankly. 0:31:35.600 --> 0:31:37.880 Yeah. Really, I feel bad for all the snails you've 0:31:37.920 --> 0:31:40.120 accidentally stepped on after a rainy evening. 0:31:40.800 --> 0:31:44.120 You hope at least they were old. 0:31:43.960 --> 0:31:45.680 Yeah, exactly, like they had their time. 0:31:46.400 --> 0:31:48.360 Yeah, so five years is a pretty long time in 0:31:48.400 --> 0:31:51.440 the wild. I think in captivity they can live up 0:31:51.440 --> 0:31:54.040 to twenty five years, which is astounding. 0:31:54.240 --> 0:31:58.680 Yeah. There's a really great little short documentary called The 0:31:58.720 --> 0:32:01.560 Strange and Wonderful War Old of the Snail Wrangler. It's 0:32:01.560 --> 0:32:04.600 on YouTube and it's about this woman who takes photos 0:32:04.640 --> 0:32:10.120 of her snail friends in like little miniature settings, human settings. 0:32:10.120 --> 0:32:13.240 It's really cute, and she talks about one of her 0:32:13.320 --> 0:32:16.920 snail companions that she's been with for like ten years. 0:32:17.960 --> 0:32:19.600 And it's just, I mean, when you think of it 0:32:19.680 --> 0:32:22.520 like that, like snails are just so they're off doing 0:32:22.560 --> 0:32:25.040 their own thing. They live in a world far different 0:32:25.040 --> 0:32:27.600 from ours, even though we share the same geography. It's 0:32:27.720 --> 0:32:30.960 just a different world. So when you cross paths with one, 0:32:31.000 --> 0:32:34.360 you're like, hey, alien, and they're probably like, hey, giant alien. 0:32:34.920 --> 0:32:38.120 And that's it. The idea that they're there in that 0:32:38.200 --> 0:32:41.719 same patch as long as you are. In some cases, 0:32:41.720 --> 0:32:43.400 when you're like if you live at a house for 0:32:43.480 --> 0:32:47.840 ten years, a snail might have lived there just as 0:32:47.880 --> 0:32:50.280 long as you did for the same time, Like you 0:32:50.360 --> 0:32:52.400 shared that with them that whole time. It's they're not 0:32:52.440 --> 0:32:57.440 just this anonymous, generic animals running around there. They I mean, 0:32:57.480 --> 0:33:00.880 anything that lives that long, there's just something substantial to 0:33:00.920 --> 0:33:03.400 it than you would think initially. 0:33:04.480 --> 0:33:05.800 Are you saying snail has the soul? 0:33:07.000 --> 0:33:07.960 I think it's pretty clear. 0:33:08.040 --> 0:33:12.480 Yes, all right, so snails are doing their things. I 0:33:12.520 --> 0:33:15.600 love this account that Alison found that was a scientist 0:33:16.040 --> 0:33:20.320 from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History that said snails 0:33:20.320 --> 0:33:24.480 are leaky bags of water that survive on dry land. 0:33:24.800 --> 0:33:25.040 Yep. 0:33:25.400 --> 0:33:27.520 And it almost sounds like they're saying like they happen 0:33:27.600 --> 0:33:31.040 to survive, because it doesn't seem like a snail was 0:33:31.120 --> 0:33:35.760 really made for that environment. But they survive anyway because 0:33:36.360 --> 0:33:40.280 snails really need to stay moist, like a snail drying out, 0:33:40.920 --> 0:33:44.640 just like a slug, means certain death. So even though 0:33:44.680 --> 0:33:46.840 there are snails in the desert, you're mainly going to 0:33:46.920 --> 0:33:50.240 find snails in more moist areas. We're gonna say that 0:33:50.280 --> 0:33:50.840 word quite a bit. 0:33:50.880 --> 0:33:53.840 I apologize, I was gonna say, unlike humans, moist is 0:33:53.880 --> 0:33:56.680 a snail's favorite word. It really is. 0:33:57.320 --> 0:33:59.680 They do live on the ground, mainly if they're a 0:33:59.680 --> 0:34:03.280 trust real snails, but they can live in trees, but 0:34:03.320 --> 0:34:06.760 they really like it down there on the ground in 0:34:06.800 --> 0:34:11.680 that sort of moist outer layer of decaying plant matter. 0:34:12.560 --> 0:34:16.360 They're pretty active at night because things can get wetter overnight, 0:34:16.440 --> 0:34:17.799 as we know, like when you wake up with like 0:34:17.840 --> 0:34:20.839 morning dew and stuff like that. So they're just down 0:34:20.880 --> 0:34:24.040 there on the ground sometimes eating meat and other snails 0:34:24.120 --> 0:34:27.240 and other eggs. But generally what they're doing is eating 0:34:27.280 --> 0:34:30.839 and munching down on that either decaying plant matter, or 0:34:31.880 --> 0:34:34.080 if you have a garden, they will also munch down 0:34:34.080 --> 0:34:35.760 on your nice new fresh plants. 0:34:35.840 --> 0:34:38.120 Yeah, and as we'll see that, they run a foul 0:34:38.160 --> 0:34:41.879 of gardeners for that reason. But just hold your horse 0:34:41.920 --> 0:34:45.600 as gardeners, put your rubber mallets away for a second 0:34:45.760 --> 0:34:48.000 until we get to that part and talk you out 0:34:48.000 --> 0:34:50.920 of it. But in that leaf litter layer, they do 0:34:50.960 --> 0:34:56.600 a lot of really important stuff they are in charge of, 0:34:56.600 --> 0:35:02.280 like recycling plant matter, decay stuff. They love decaying everything 0:35:03.280 --> 0:35:06.080 in addition to live plants to they love dead plants. 0:35:06.400 --> 0:35:09.799 And when they're doing that, they're like recycling nutrients. They 0:35:09.840 --> 0:35:12.479 eat that stuff, they break it down and they poop 0:35:12.520 --> 0:35:15.840 it out, and that means it's bioavailable in the soil 0:35:15.920 --> 0:35:18.400 for plants to use, for other animals to come along 0:35:18.440 --> 0:35:20.440 and like that, like to lick the dirt, that kind 0:35:20.480 --> 0:35:23.640 of thing. They also are really important in the food 0:35:23.680 --> 0:35:29.719 web because calcium is not really easy necessarily to come 0:35:29.760 --> 0:35:33.920 by in food, at least if you're like a small 0:35:34.040 --> 0:35:36.360 like an invertbrate or a mammal or something like that. 0:35:37.080 --> 0:35:39.760 If you eat a snail shell, you get a burst 0:35:39.760 --> 0:35:43.560 of calcium, so that snailshell is really important. And then 0:35:43.560 --> 0:35:46.200 they're also chok full of protein themselves. So they're like 0:35:46.239 --> 0:35:49.319 a really important part of any food web in the 0:35:49.400 --> 0:35:50.719 ecosystem that they live in. 0:35:51.680 --> 0:35:54.560 Yeah, they're also moving stuff around down there. I mean, 0:35:55.880 --> 0:35:58.279 plant matter in that outer layer that just sits and 0:35:58.320 --> 0:36:02.360 sits isn't great. But if they're if you've got thousands 0:36:02.400 --> 0:36:05.560 of snails moving around through it, it's gonna help drainage out. 0:36:05.640 --> 0:36:09.960 It's going to help keep distributing those nutrients if there's 0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:13.200 you know, it can help move dirt and clay even important. 0:36:13.680 --> 0:36:15.919 All that stuff is great. And they can actually help 0:36:15.960 --> 0:36:20.960 pollinate too. Some of them are nighttime pollinators. They get 0:36:20.960 --> 0:36:24.200 in there with that plant nectar, they eat that stuff 0:36:24.239 --> 0:36:25.719 and then they poop that out as well. 0:36:25.800 --> 0:36:29.160 Yeah, pretty crazy. I had no idea that they were pollinators. 0:36:29.160 --> 0:36:30.880 It just makes them even more important, you know what 0:36:30.920 --> 0:36:34.160 I mean totally. So I think, Chuck, we take a 0:36:34.200 --> 0:36:36.200 break and then we come back and talk about why 0:36:36.280 --> 0:36:38.440 you should leave the snails alone. How about that. 0:36:39.160 --> 0:36:39.680 Let's do it. 0:37:04.520 --> 0:37:08.839 So one thing that we said earlier, Chuck, was that 0:37:09.239 --> 0:37:12.439 snails run a foul of gardeners, and the reason why 0:37:12.480 --> 0:37:14.960 is because they will, I mean, they will eat a 0:37:14.960 --> 0:37:18.360 lot of plants. The Burgundy snail also known as the 0:37:18.480 --> 0:37:21.680 Roman snail, the one that's mostly used for s cargo 0:37:21.760 --> 0:37:26.400 these days. They weigh twenty gramsish as an adult, but 0:37:26.480 --> 0:37:30.080 they'll eat six grams of plant matter in a day. Yeah, 0:37:30.120 --> 0:37:32.520 you have a bunch of burgundy snails running around your garden. 0:37:32.560 --> 0:37:35.280 They're gonna eat your hostas, they're gonna eat your seedlings. 0:37:35.480 --> 0:37:38.759 They're going to tick you off. And so there's a 0:37:38.800 --> 0:37:43.040 lot of a lot of animosity that gardeners have towards 0:37:43.080 --> 0:37:47.600 snails and slugs too, and so they people have been 0:37:47.640 --> 0:37:49.680 trying things to get rid of snails for a very 0:37:49.680 --> 0:37:52.480 long time. The problem is number one, you don't actually 0:37:52.520 --> 0:37:56.600 want to get rid of snails, especially native snails or 0:37:56.640 --> 0:38:00.800 common garden snails. And number two, the meta that's typically 0:38:00.880 --> 0:38:05.480 used are chemical and they can harm other life as well. Yeah, 0:38:05.520 --> 0:38:07.920 so there's you basically want to leave the snails alone 0:38:07.960 --> 0:38:09.320 as much as possible. 0:38:10.360 --> 0:38:14.919 Yeah. There is some information here that Allison got from 0:38:14.920 --> 0:38:19.960 the Royal Horticultural Society in Britain, and they say, you know, 0:38:20.120 --> 0:38:22.840 don't use chemical pesticides please, Like, if you want to 0:38:22.840 --> 0:38:24.920 get rid of your snails, you can try and do 0:38:25.000 --> 0:38:31.160 so naturally by introducing predators. I guess you know, you 0:38:31.320 --> 0:38:33.239 throw a bunch of garden beetles out there and see 0:38:33.280 --> 0:38:36.799 what happens. Just say, whoever whoever walks out of here 0:38:36.800 --> 0:38:39.759 alive is, you know, deserves to live. It's like the 0:38:40.200 --> 0:38:44.000 Thunderdome exactly. To enter one leaves. 0:38:44.360 --> 0:38:46.200 As a matter of fact, if you're bored, just go 0:38:46.200 --> 0:38:49.799 ahead and build a small scale replica up the thunderdome 0:38:49.840 --> 0:38:51.960 and put the snail in the beetle in you. 0:38:52.719 --> 0:38:56.080 That's right, But then you have to act like Tina 0:38:56.120 --> 0:39:01.399 Turner and use that voice when he raggedy snail. That's 0:39:01.440 --> 0:39:02.399 what you would have to call it. 0:39:03.680 --> 0:39:06.680 That was a great impression, by the way, Chuck, thank you. 0:39:06.760 --> 0:39:10.520 In addition to putting them in a death match against beetles, 0:39:11.480 --> 0:39:13.000 you can go pick them out yourself. If you go 0:39:13.040 --> 0:39:16.040 out at night with the flashlight, you can pick pick 0:39:16.120 --> 0:39:17.720 up plenty of snails. 0:39:18.120 --> 0:39:20.359 The thing is you put them in your neighbor's guard. 0:39:20.480 --> 0:39:23.719 Yeah, exactly, Especially if they're a jerk hosta grower, they 0:39:23.719 --> 0:39:26.279 will really drive them crazy. Now what you want to 0:39:26.280 --> 0:39:28.239 do is put them on your compost pile, because again, 0:39:28.280 --> 0:39:31.399 they like decaying stuff and they're really useful, so they'll 0:39:31.440 --> 0:39:35.680 be pretty happy there. And you can also trap them 0:39:35.719 --> 0:39:38.759 by carving out like melons or grapefruit or something like that, 0:39:38.800 --> 0:39:41.080 and they'll be attracted to that, and it's just basically 0:39:41.120 --> 0:39:43.239 acts as a trap. You just throw it back on 0:39:43.320 --> 0:39:45.560 your compost pile the next day and there you go. 0:39:46.520 --> 0:39:46.960 All right. 0:39:48.160 --> 0:39:53.920 Some people do, say you some people still use pesticides 0:39:54.719 --> 0:39:59.560 if you're if you're organic, use feric phosphate, which interrupts 0:39:59.560 --> 0:40:02.640 their abilit to digest so they die of starvation in 0:40:02.680 --> 0:40:07.319 a few days. There's another one called metaldehyde that is 0:40:07.400 --> 0:40:12.760 hardcore stuff. It desiccates them. They end up dehydrating to death, 0:40:13.280 --> 0:40:16.080 and it's banned in the EU because they consider it 0:40:16.320 --> 0:40:20.960 unacceptably harmful to birds and mammals. Of course, here in 0:40:20.960 --> 0:40:22.680 the US you can use it as much as you like. 0:40:23.360 --> 0:40:23.920 Of course you can. 0:40:24.000 --> 0:40:26.840 And they use it for the giant African land snail 0:40:26.880 --> 0:40:30.520 in particular, because again metaldehyde is hardcore stuff, and it 0:40:30.560 --> 0:40:34.000 turns out that the giant African land snail is hardcore snail. 0:40:35.080 --> 0:40:37.879 Yeah, it's a hard core snail obviously would be an 0:40:37.880 --> 0:40:42.560 invasive species here in North America. These are the big ones, 0:40:42.560 --> 0:40:45.359 the one that look like a bunny. I thought they 0:40:45.360 --> 0:40:48.759 can be eight inches long. They eat more than five 0:40:48.840 --> 0:40:53.400 hundred species of plant. They will eat everything in their paths, 0:40:54.120 --> 0:40:57.400 including in Florida. They're a real problem in Florida. Apparently 0:40:58.040 --> 0:41:00.960 they will eat the stucco off your house to get 0:41:01.000 --> 0:41:05.160 more calcium, and they can pass disease along to people 0:41:05.600 --> 0:41:10.839 and animals. Youah, rat lungworm, Yeah, meningitis. I've seen that there. 0:41:11.760 --> 0:41:14.960 They can carry a host of parasites, or they can 0:41:15.080 --> 0:41:19.000 host a host of parasites, some of which will is 0:41:19.520 --> 0:41:22.680 you know, good for the snail because it keeps animals 0:41:22.719 --> 0:41:25.719 from eating them, So it's like a defense mechanism, right, 0:41:26.040 --> 0:41:28.560 But that can be harmful to people at times as well. 0:41:29.480 --> 0:41:32.000 Yeah, yeah, you don't want rat long worm. Like you said, 0:41:32.000 --> 0:41:35.680 it can create meningitis in humans. So it's best to 0:41:35.719 --> 0:41:38.200 not really handle snails with your bare hands, and especially 0:41:38.520 --> 0:41:41.239 don't eat the snail alive from your garden. That's a 0:41:41.280 --> 0:41:42.200 really bad idea. 0:41:43.239 --> 0:41:46.880 Yeah, but people actually collect and I'm not sure if 0:41:46.880 --> 0:41:49.799 that's how they got here, but people collect these, you know, 0:41:49.840 --> 0:41:53.840 as an illegal pet, these giant African land snails. 0:41:53.880 --> 0:41:56.720 That's my understanding that they were imported as illegal pets, 0:41:56.840 --> 0:41:58.840 at least to south in the world. 0:41:59.120 --> 0:42:00.200 Are people doing. 0:42:00.280 --> 0:42:03.240 I don't know, but they also have been have shown 0:42:03.320 --> 0:42:07.120 up in some other places, including Hawaii and Polynesia, and 0:42:07.840 --> 0:42:11.680 somehow they got from Florida to these places, probably through 0:42:11.719 --> 0:42:17.360 the illegal pet trade. And so, in just typical human 0:42:17.480 --> 0:42:21.759 fashion in the fifties, people said, well, wait, there's this 0:42:22.400 --> 0:42:26.000 snail called a rosy wolf snail, and it's a predator. 0:42:26.040 --> 0:42:29.719 It's a little literal snail predator. It's just important bunch 0:42:29.760 --> 0:42:33.000 of them to take care of this giant African land 0:42:33.000 --> 0:42:36.120 snail because I'm sure nothing will possibly go wrong because 0:42:36.120 --> 0:42:39.040 of this plan. It's foolproof. And that's what they did, 0:42:39.320 --> 0:42:41.880 and as a result, Hawaii has lost almost all of 0:42:41.880 --> 0:42:45.760 its native snail species in the wild because the rosy 0:42:45.760 --> 0:42:48.920 wolf snail was like, I'd just rather eat these other 0:42:49.000 --> 0:42:51.520 kinds of snails than leave the giant African snail alone. 0:42:52.000 --> 0:42:56.359 Yeah, these things are pretty creepy, though. I imagine there's got 0:42:56.400 --> 0:43:00.319 to be some kind of nat geo video of the 0:43:00.400 --> 0:43:05.480 wolf snail, like, you know, following its prey because for 0:43:05.560 --> 0:43:09.280 a snail, they're moving pretty fast. Yeah, when they're tracking something, 0:43:09.320 --> 0:43:12.960 they go double to triple their normal speed. They will 0:43:12.960 --> 0:43:16.239 go up a tree after something. They will go underwater 0:43:16.520 --> 0:43:18.960 after something for a little while until they need to 0:43:19.000 --> 0:43:21.640 come up. It seems like they're just tenacious little fellas 0:43:22.040 --> 0:43:24.680 and they will go after something until they catch it. 0:43:25.160 --> 0:43:28.320 Yeah, and they like to swallow other snails whole, including 0:43:28.360 --> 0:43:28.840 their shell. 0:43:29.239 --> 0:43:29.520 Wow. 0:43:29.560 --> 0:43:33.440 And there's a malacologist named Harry g Lee who dissected 0:43:33.480 --> 0:43:37.440 a rosy wolf snail and found thirteen other snails shells 0:43:37.440 --> 0:43:38.520 in its gut. 0:43:39.120 --> 0:43:42.560 Yeah, that's a lot, a lot. It's like in a 0:43:42.600 --> 0:43:44.279 Louisiana state license plate. 0:43:44.800 --> 0:43:47.960 Yeah exactly. So, Yeah, you don't want these things on 0:43:48.000 --> 0:43:51.200 your beautiful, pristine island. And once you bring them in, 0:43:51.239 --> 0:43:53.359 they're going to cause all sorts of problems. And that's 0:43:53.360 --> 0:43:56.560 what that Goodbye Snail video was about. It's definitely worth watching. 0:43:57.040 --> 0:44:00.680 But the rosy wolf snail is definitely considered invasive. And 0:44:00.719 --> 0:44:03.719 what I didn't know, Chuck, is the common garden snail, 0:44:04.280 --> 0:44:09.319 the one we're so familiar with, is considered invasive in 0:44:09.480 --> 0:44:15.520 the United States. Corn new espresso, that is the common 0:44:15.520 --> 0:44:18.480 garden snail, and it was originally important because it was 0:44:18.520 --> 0:44:21.040 the one that used to be es cargo, and some 0:44:21.080 --> 0:44:23.520 of them escaped from farms and set up shop in 0:44:23.560 --> 0:44:26.520 the wild. And now it's called the common garden snail 0:44:26.560 --> 0:44:28.759 because it became so prolific. 0:44:29.640 --> 0:44:33.600 Yeah, and they don't know when people started eating es cargo. 0:44:34.120 --> 0:44:36.919 And I think es cargo is is the French name 0:44:37.239 --> 0:44:41.080 for that edible snail. And also doubles is the name 0:44:41.080 --> 0:44:44.200 of the dish. 0:44:42.840 --> 0:44:45.680 Right, Yeah, yeah, I think you're right, like French things both. 0:44:46.120 --> 0:44:50.920 Yeah, but you know, people like this stuff. It was always, 0:44:51.000 --> 0:44:52.839 you know, growing up, you always heard about es cargo 0:44:53.040 --> 0:44:55.879 was like this, you know, sort of as a as 0:44:55.920 --> 0:44:59.239 a kid, the first fancy, weird food you'd heard of. 0:44:59.360 --> 0:45:02.920 Probably do the wealthy have no bounds kind of. 0:45:04.800 --> 0:45:08.680 Exactly. And then you know, we've got all signs. Should 0:45:08.680 --> 0:45:10.120 we finish up with just a bunch of kind of 0:45:10.160 --> 0:45:15.920 cool factoids, Yeah, for sure. Well. Jewelry. Snail shells have 0:45:16.040 --> 0:45:19.720 always or have long been used as jewelry for humans, 0:45:19.719 --> 0:45:22.759 as some of the oldest known human jewelry. They found 0:45:22.760 --> 0:45:27.040 the stuff like necklaces and stuff made of sea snail 0:45:27.040 --> 0:45:29.680 shells that date back like at least one hundred and 0:45:29.719 --> 0:45:30.600 twenty thousand years. 0:45:30.840 --> 0:45:31.759 That's nuts man. 0:45:32.239 --> 0:45:33.000 Yeah, what else? 0:45:33.719 --> 0:45:36.640 The author Patricia high Smith, who was a very interesting 0:45:36.680 --> 0:45:39.440 person in her own right. She wrote The Strangers on 0:45:39.480 --> 0:45:42.799 a Train and the Talented Mister Ripley novels. She was 0:45:42.840 --> 0:45:46.760 a snail pal like the snail wrangler in that video 0:45:46.840 --> 0:45:49.680 that I talked about, And like the snail wrangler in 0:45:49.680 --> 0:45:51.600 that video that I talked about, she would go out 0:45:51.680 --> 0:45:55.080 in public with her snails as companions. There's a story 0:45:55.080 --> 0:45:58.120 of Patricia Highsmith at a party who was revealed to 0:45:58.160 --> 0:46:01.320 have dozens of snails in her purse who she brought 0:46:01.480 --> 0:46:04.160 so she'd have someone to talk to her snail friends. 0:46:04.640 --> 0:46:05.960 Yeah, how about that? 0:46:06.760 --> 0:46:09.279 How about that? That's what snail people do? Is that 0:46:09.360 --> 0:46:09.799 kind of thing? 0:46:09.840 --> 0:46:13.360 Yeah? Yeah. This is really interesting is they've been studying 0:46:13.520 --> 0:46:19.000 how snails might help us figure out Alzheimer's disease. From 0:46:19.000 --> 0:46:21.120 what I found is they've you know, we've talked about 0:46:21.160 --> 0:46:24.840 Alzheimer's before, which is when you have these amyloid plaque 0:46:24.840 --> 0:46:28.040 build up or plaques I guess that build up on 0:46:28.080 --> 0:46:32.480 the brain tissue, and they don't exactly know how it 0:46:32.560 --> 0:46:34.440 causes memory loss, but this is what they're trying to 0:46:34.440 --> 0:46:37.520 figure out what the snails. These plaques are formed from 0:46:37.520 --> 0:46:40.680 a protein called amyloid beta, which we've talked about, or 0:46:40.760 --> 0:46:44.040 a beta, and they have taken a beta and put 0:46:44.040 --> 0:46:48.440 it on otherwise very healthy pond snails. I have no 0:46:48.560 --> 0:46:51.879 idea why they chose, like why they thought the pond 0:46:51.880 --> 0:46:53.799 snail was a good candidate to begin with. 0:46:54.120 --> 0:46:55.480 Terrible lobbying group. 0:46:55.719 --> 0:46:58.360 Maybe that's what it is. But they put this a 0:46:58.400 --> 0:47:01.359 beta on these healthy ponds snails and within twenty four 0:47:01.400 --> 0:47:06.960 hours they show evidence that they have harmed their memory basically, 0:47:07.560 --> 0:47:11.480 but the finding is that they haven't found any damage 0:47:11.480 --> 0:47:14.520 to the brain tissue, like no cell loss, no brain 0:47:14.560 --> 0:47:18.359 tissue damage at all. So basically what they have sort 0:47:18.400 --> 0:47:20.920 of you know the result of all that is that 0:47:20.960 --> 0:47:24.680 ABTA by itself can trigger the memory loss and it's 0:47:24.719 --> 0:47:28.920 not from like damage to the brain or like a deterioration. 0:47:28.239 --> 0:47:30.680 Of the brain or the platte build up, right. 0:47:30.920 --> 0:47:34.719 Yeah, exactly. They think it's like a specific pathway for 0:47:34.840 --> 0:47:37.719 memory that's being damaged and the brain itself. Thank you 0:47:37.800 --> 0:47:40.360 pond snails, I know it's amazing. 0:47:40.480 --> 0:47:42.080 I also saw it goes the other way too, that 0:47:42.120 --> 0:47:45.480 the common garden snails mucus has been found to be 0:47:45.560 --> 0:47:51.680 bioactive as an anti inflammatory, antioxidant and anti apoptic, which 0:47:51.719 --> 0:47:55.919 means it prevents cell death. Oh wow, so they think 0:47:55.960 --> 0:47:58.560 that they are figuring out how to turn that into 0:47:58.600 --> 0:48:01.680 a drug to treat Alzheimer's. So snails are just coming 0:48:01.719 --> 0:48:04.520 at us with the one two punch to battle Alzheimer's disease. 0:48:05.000 --> 0:48:06.880 Yeah, God blessed love it. 0:48:07.040 --> 0:48:11.160 Speaking of God bless them, if you're subscribe to the 0:48:11.160 --> 0:48:15.000 West African Yoruba religion, you would say God bless the 0:48:15.040 --> 0:48:18.719 snail because they're associated with Obatala, the sky Father, as 0:48:18.760 --> 0:48:23.120 well as the Arisha's collective deities, to whom the land snail, 0:48:23.200 --> 0:48:26.280 the giant African land snail in particular, is sacred. 0:48:26.520 --> 0:48:28.399 I gotta read this last thing. This is the only 0:48:28.520 --> 0:48:33.800 last thing I got. Okay, this Nigerian snail recipe. Yeah, 0:48:33.880 --> 0:48:36.399 I'm not in to eat snails. They call this congo meat. 0:48:37.760 --> 0:48:43.279 It's got red pepper, habnio's okay, garlic, onion, and then 0:48:43.320 --> 0:48:47.080 a season with cayenne and ground crayfish. 0:48:47.719 --> 0:48:49.440 Yeah, you lost me at Hobin Euro But it does 0:48:49.480 --> 0:48:52.440 sound extremely interesting. I would try it. I'd just be like, 0:48:52.480 --> 0:48:54.120 can you leave the hobbin Niro out. 0:48:54.480 --> 0:48:58.399 Too hot, too hot, Yeah, too hot for the hot 0:48:58.440 --> 0:48:59.719 top Yeah. 0:48:59.560 --> 0:49:03.919 Too hot tv uh huh. So I've got one more thing, chuck, 0:49:04.239 --> 0:49:07.840 let's hear it. There is a weird thing that started 0:49:07.880 --> 0:49:10.880 popping up at the end of the thirteenth century in 0:49:11.000 --> 0:49:16.040 northern France. If you look through illuminated manuscripts, meaning manuscripts 0:49:16.080 --> 0:49:18.560 that have the doodles in the margins and all that, 0:49:18.680 --> 0:49:22.280 like a map magazine, yeah, you will start to notice 0:49:22.320 --> 0:49:26.239 there are pictures of nights battling giant snails. 0:49:26.280 --> 0:49:28.160 Oh yeah, that's so interesting. 0:49:28.360 --> 0:49:31.160 And they It lasted for like one hundred or so years, 0:49:31.280 --> 0:49:33.759 is like a trend. It actually came back again for 0:49:33.800 --> 0:49:35.960 a little while in the fifteenth century, and no one 0:49:36.000 --> 0:49:40.040 has any idea what they were trying to say. One 0:49:40.120 --> 0:49:42.120 of the theories is that it is just hilarious that 0:49:42.160 --> 0:49:44.439 it was Menu's like kind of comic relief. While you're 0:49:44.480 --> 0:49:46.680 reading like this kind of heavy text or whatever, you 0:49:46.719 --> 0:49:48.680 just look over and you're like, that's a night battling 0:49:48.719 --> 0:49:50.000 a snail, right. 0:49:50.120 --> 0:49:50.480 Yeah. 0:49:50.600 --> 0:49:54.360 Other people say that the snails symbolize something like superhuman 0:49:54.440 --> 0:49:56.880 strength because they carry their house on their back. I 0:49:56.960 --> 0:49:58.840 kind of pooh poo that one I like this the 0:49:58.880 --> 0:50:00.200 comic relief one. 0:50:00.719 --> 0:50:02.920 And people were just like, hey, this is funny. Look 0:50:02.960 --> 0:50:04.640 at this. This night's fighting a snail. 0:50:04.760 --> 0:50:06.719 Yeah, this will be good for a laugh, said the 0:50:06.760 --> 0:50:10.880 medieval monk. Very interesting, I say so too. So if 0:50:10.920 --> 0:50:13.800 you want to know more about snails, everybody, go forth 0:50:14.040 --> 0:50:16.520 research them. You could do worse than watching the strange 0:50:16.520 --> 0:50:19.560 and wonderful world of the Snail Wrangler. And goodbye snails. 0:50:19.719 --> 0:50:21.640 And if you see a snail in your garden, and 0:50:21.880 --> 0:50:24.680 especially if it's not doing anything to harm things, you 0:50:24.960 --> 0:50:27.840 just tip your hat to it and say good day, snail. 0:50:28.239 --> 0:50:30.920 You could be as much as five to ten years old. 0:50:31.880 --> 0:50:34.640 That's right, Chuck said, that's right. This means it's time 0:50:34.680 --> 0:50:35.399 for listener mail. 0:50:38.239 --> 0:50:41.080 Yeah, we're going to do a correction. I wish we 0:50:41.080 --> 0:50:43.040 could get this one out sooner because we're going to 0:50:43.160 --> 0:50:49.040 continue to get emails about the Great isotope ion. My 0:50:49.200 --> 0:50:54.160 goodness issue, which I didn't know is an issue. This 0:50:54.640 --> 0:50:55.799 was we had a lot of them. But this is 0:50:55.840 --> 0:51:01.359 from Nick Lufty, PhD student at UC Irvine, and Nick 0:51:01.680 --> 0:51:05.359 is getting a PhD in quantum chemistry. 0:51:05.920 --> 0:51:09.160 Oh wow, man, I want to hang out with you Nick. 0:51:10.680 --> 0:51:16.200 And Nick listens with his wife Dinah, Hey, Dinah, and said, 0:51:16.280 --> 0:51:18.640 can't wait till we're in town for a show. But 0:51:18.960 --> 0:51:21.520 if you're at Irvine, I mean Irvine. How far is 0:51:21.520 --> 0:51:25.000 that from San Francisco. I mean it's in the state 0:51:25.000 --> 0:51:26.839 of California. So Scott to just be like an hour 0:51:26.880 --> 0:51:27.680 away exactly. 0:51:27.719 --> 0:51:29.600 Yeah, everything in California is an hour away. 0:51:30.160 --> 0:51:32.600 Come see us. Hey, guys, wanted to offer a slight 0:51:32.600 --> 0:51:36.000 correction about the periodic table. Don't hate me. When you 0:51:36.040 --> 0:51:39.480 mentioned the different weighted averages being a result of different isotopes, 0:51:40.120 --> 0:51:42.080 you mentioned that it is the loss or gain of 0:51:42.120 --> 0:51:46.520 an electron that constitutes the different isotopes. This is actually incorrect. 0:51:46.800 --> 0:51:50.400 What you've defined is an ion, not an isotope. It 0:51:50.440 --> 0:51:52.360 is the varying number of neutrons that makes up the 0:51:52.360 --> 0:51:55.040 different flavors of isotopes. This is the thing that makes 0:51:55.120 --> 0:51:58.040 carbon dating possible. I love that episode. By the way. 0:51:58.920 --> 0:52:01.600 Last thing, guys, mystry as a whole is a very 0:52:01.640 --> 0:52:05.080 inaccessible branch of STEM. I hated it. I failed my 0:52:05.120 --> 0:52:08.520 first che chemistry class in one day. Our professor was 0:52:08.560 --> 0:52:11.160 out sick, and the chair of the chem department came 0:52:11.560 --> 0:52:13.480 to sub in and she implored us to get a 0:52:13.520 --> 0:52:17.040 PhD in chemistry. I said to myself, she must be nuts. 0:52:17.120 --> 0:52:20.960 Here I am ten years later and I am clearly 0:52:21.160 --> 0:52:23.640 the one who is nuts. The long and short of 0:52:23.640 --> 0:52:27.120 this last bit is to never give up on science. Nice, 0:52:27.280 --> 0:52:30.600 and that again is from Nick. I think it said lufty, 0:52:31.120 --> 0:52:32.680 but it's actually lutfi. 0:52:33.680 --> 0:52:39.759 Okay, like Chipotle chipolte. Yeah, that's right, Thanks a lot, Nick. 0:52:40.400 --> 0:52:43.440 We'll call him nick L from now on. Yeah, that 0:52:43.560 --> 0:52:45.800 was a great one. So everybody who wrote in to 0:52:45.880 --> 0:52:47.919 let us know, we appreciate you for doing that because 0:52:47.960 --> 0:52:50.040 we like to get things right and that was definitely 0:52:50.040 --> 0:52:52.280 a slip up and it is something that we needed 0:52:52.280 --> 0:52:55.279 to correct for sure. So good job Chuck picking that one. 0:52:55.760 --> 0:52:56.560 Yeah. 0:52:56.719 --> 0:52:58.040 Well, if you want to get in touch with us 0:52:58.040 --> 0:53:00.719 and let us know we got something wronger something right, 0:53:00.880 --> 0:53:03.160 or tell someone about yourself or your dog or your 0:53:03.200 --> 0:53:06.120 pet goat doesn't matter, you can send it via email 0:53:06.280 --> 0:53:11.400 to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. 0:53:12.520 --> 0:53:15.400 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For 0:53:15.480 --> 0:53:19.680 more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:53:19.800 --> 0:53:21.640 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.