In 1935, on a small island in Big Fort, someone caught a ground-striped taro snail, and this person took the ground-grained taro snail in the palm of his hand and began to use the thin stratum corneum on the outer shell of the knife. The snail was frightened, so it shot a stinger into the palm of the man's hand. The poisoned man first felt numbness in his palms, and after 10 minutes, his mouth lost consciousness, and after another 10 minutes, his vision appeared ghostly. After half an hour of poisoning, his legs were paralyzed and he fell into a coma. After 4 hours, death came. Coincidentally, just 3 years after the first poisoning, another person made the same mistake, this time on another island near Africa. This time, this one also used a knife to scratch the ground snail. After inevitably poisoning, his whole body lost consciousness, and fortunately someone found him and sent him to seek medical attention in time. Doctors revived the patient and recommended "plus a full body massage." After these poisonings, people began to understand this unknown marine life, and even gave the snail a name called "killer taro snail".
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > net predator</h1>
The snail is one of the most venomous creatures on Earth. Ground snails belong to a relatively rare group of taro snails, which are called "net-casting predators". The speed at which they fire stingers at fish is almost invisible to the naked eye, and they do not target a single fish, they attack an entire school of fish. The attack process of the ground snails is extremely elegant, they first release a fog of toxins in the water, paralyzing the fish, and then calmly crawl over and kill their prey.
Other marine hunters mostly win the hunt by body size, and the ground snail does not rely on "strong physique" to solve the hunting problem, they rely on a chemical weapon and "stinger bullet" combined with a hybrid weapon, precision and cruelty. Strange things happen when the snail approaches the paralyzed fish, or to be precise, several strange things happen in quick succession. First of all, the fish did not seem to panic, each fish was calm, eyes wide open, motionless, even when the ground snail opened its hot air balloon-like blood basin mouth in front of it. The snail opened its mouth and slowly wrapped up several stationary fish in its entirety, before firing its spines at each fish in its mouth, which paralyzed them instantly. Eventually, the snail-like mouth shrinks slowly, and the fish inside will die.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > secret of the venom</h1>
It is reasonable to say that the dying prey should not be so relaxed, but in fact, they are all "cursed", and the ground snail has evolved the means of using insulin as a chemical weapon. By releasing a large amount of insulin to the water body, the snail makes the blood sugar level of the prey drop sharply, causing the prey to produce hypoglycemia, and finally the nervous system of these fish strikes, the body is a bit disobedient, the brain can not think, as if hypnotized, the consciousness is locked, it feels a bit like a "ghost press". What is even more bizarre, however, is that the chemical structure of invertebrate insulin and insulin in vertebrates is completely different, and the ground snail belongs to the former. That is to say, in addition to secreting invertebrate insulin for its own use, the ground snail also makes additional vertebrate insulin for hunting.
In addition to insulin, the venom used to paralyze prey has other toxic components, and Badomeo Oliveira, a biologist who specializes in the venom of the snail, named this mixture of venom "Nirvana Conspiracy" The snail uses several peptides in the venom to further paralyze fish, which can hinder the transmission of nerve signals in fish. Researchers have used one of these peptides for the clinical treatment of epilepsy, a disease caused by abnormal discharge of the brain.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "last trigger"</h1>
In summary, the ground snail first "sleeps" the school of fish, and then swallows a few fish into the mouth. But after the prey enters, they also have to pull the "last trigger". There are about 20 stingers in the body of the snail, which are connected to the venom glands, and their essence is actually deformed teeth. The snail first shoots a stinger at a paralyzed fish, then reloads it and fires it at the next one in turn. It's a verbal killing. The venom used by the snail at this time, also known as the "motor conspiracy", can kill an adult in sufficient quantities. After fish poisoning, neuronal cells will directly "short circuit", causing nerves to lose control of the muscles, and the final cause of death is likely to be suffocation, because the fish must use the muscles to swallow water, so that the water flows through the gills of the fish to breathe.
"Net-reeling" snails have a unique venom that numbs the fish before they get close to the school, so they can get their prey effortlessly. Before learning about this animal, people thought that their secret weapon was only one or two toxins, but as the research progressed, people found that this animal has many unknown weapons, and the more you know about it, the more terrible it is.
In fact, all kinds of snail weapons are quite complex and powerful, and the evolution of these weapons has taken generations of time, which is completely the result of natural evolution, and human beings currently know too little about this marine life. If you're at the beach, remember not to offend snails you don't understand with a knife, unless you also want the doctor to give you a "full body massage."