15
Apr
Giant, slimy, hungry African land snails are invading Florida
The rat-sized snails eat everything in their path and even carry diseases that can infect humans.
15
Apr
Giant, slimy, hungry African land snails are invading Florida
The rat-sized snails eat everything in their path and even carry diseases that can infect humans.
10
Dec
Conus sea snail shell evolution, another gem from Wired’s Best Scientific Figures of 2012. There’s some real artistic gems hidden in research papers.
14
Mar
Cyborg snails may soon be joining the military
Snails implanted with biofuel cells produce enough electricity to power small circuits, and may one day provide reconnaissance for the military.
28
Feb
Ready, set, slow! Snail racing involves racing two or more land snails, typically on a circular track with a radius of 13-14 inches. Racing numbers are either painted on the snails’ shells or small stickers are attached to them to distinguish each competitor. Many snail-racing events take place worldwide each year, but the annual World Snail Racing Championships in the U.K. is the most popular.
14 wacky animal sports
10
Feb
Miami battles giant African snail invasion
The invasion has southern Florida in a panic over potential crop damage, disease and general yuckiness surrounding the slimy gastropods.
11
Oct
cwnl:
Janthina janthina
Or more commonly known as a bubble-rafting violet snail (The purple snail). This occasional upside-down swimmer is a snail that excretes mucus from its foot and uses the raft of bubbles to float from place to place.
Snails that get around on rafts of mucous-y bubbles inherited the talent from ancestors that carried their eggs around like balloons on a string, a new study finds. In the process, the slimy snails transformed themselves from ocean-floor dwellers to free-moving floaters.
The mucous-y snails have been known since the 1600s, but this is the first time that researchers have been able to trace the origin of their snotty ways. Researchers led by University of Michigan graduate student Celia Churchill suspected two possibilities: The first was that the rafts are an advanced version of a snail-moving technique called “droguing.” Young marine snails produce a thread of mucus, or drogue, that helps them drift around like a kite on a string in the water. Another possibility was that the rafts were modified versions of egg masses.
03
Apr
Check out these 14 wacky animal sports.
14
Dec
Snails that coil one way trade sex for an increased chance to not being eaten by snakes that have specialized to eat snails that coil the other way.
via jtotheizzoe
via ikenbot