Researchers in Japan and Thailand have discovered four types of luminescent snails, the second time in 80 years that such a discovery has been made.
Bioluminescence is actually very rare in the animal kingdom. To date, scientists have only discovered about 7,000 species of animals capable of emitting light in this way, most of which are located in the world's oceans.
This phenomenon is caused by a chemical reaction that occurs in living organisms, a process similar to the chemiluminescence assay performed by human researchers. This reaction produces a small amount of heat, sometimes referred to as "cold light".
The wonderful world of glowing snails is both rare and fascinating. For decades, the only known example of luminescence in terrestrial mollusks was the 1943 discovery of the snail with the snail, also known as the "blinking snail". This adorable medium-sized, air-breathing snail lives in Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Fiji and some of the islands around the Reel Islands. But despite its brilliance, it seems to be unique. Until now!
During an examination of a variety of terrestrial snails collected in Thailand in 2022, an international team of researchers from Chubu University in Aichi Prefecture in Japan and Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, discovered four new species that joined the unprecedented category of "blinking" as a solitary category.
According to research, these snails all belong to the genus Phuphania and produce a constant green light from the cells that appear on the snails' coats and feet. These luminous parts and their patterns are completely different from those of the snail with a snail.
"Although both the salamander and Phuphania emit green light, the luminescence patterns are different," the authors wrote in the paper. "The snail shows rhythmic blinking or flickering, while Phuphania glows continuously. ”
This glow is most likely produced by these snails to hide from predators. According to the Asahi Shimbun report, Yuichi Koba, a professor and research team member at Chubu University's Department of Environmental Biology, said they may do so by mimicking the light of other light-emitting creatures that are actually poisonous, such as firefly larvae.
The study was published in Scientific Reports.