Slashdot Mirror
Snail Discovered That Can Survive Digestion By Birds
smitty777 writes "A recent article in the Journal of Biogeography describes research showing that 15% of the snails devoured by birds on a Japanese island can survive the digestive process. This is thought to be the mechanism by which the snail populations can migrate from island to island, similar to the way plant seeds are deposited. From the article: 'In the lab, scientists fed the birds with the snails to find out whether any survived the digestive process. "We were surprised that a high rate, about 15 percent, of snails were still alive after passing through the gut of [the] birds," explained researcher Shinichiro Wada.'" As bad as riding in a bird's digestive tract sounds, I'd take it over flying standby on a puddle jumper.
After all, what bird wants to eat something that looks and smells like bird poop?
Someone had to do it.
If snails can survive, so can bombs, or even terrorists. The TSA should focus their time on scanning birds.
A unique way to learn a language: http://languageloom.com
Pretty much like flying coach on an airline...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
... you look/smell like shit!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Would you be angry if a snail came squirming out of your ass?
Biological Dropships.
I'm not the only one who thinks that's awesome, right?
YEAH THE REG ALREADY DID THIS !!
Did you know that Slashdot is a "digest" of reader submitted "tips" about stories on... wait for it... get this: other web sites and sources?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
...that fails to properly digest snails.
Perhaps this would explain the evolution of Leucochloridium paradoxum, the flatworm that turns snails into zombies for the purpose of being eaten by birds and hence transport.
... since I very well could be eating out of a bird's ass.
Does the shell survive? Do those poor birds have to pass a shell? Doesn't it break? Does that injure the bird?
So many questions, if only I hadn't taken a solemn vow to never RTFA.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
And with that mental image, I am off to prepare some dinner.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Is this a kind of symbiotic relationship?
Do the birds get any nutrition / energy from it?
They get to digest 85% of the snails.
This could be to escargot what Kopi Luwak is to coffee.
Was there something about that particular 15% of the snails? I mean, if those 15% tried the ride again, would all of them make it or is it just something about the way these birds eat snails that allow 15% unharmed through each time?
Some people would pay good money for that experience.
They have only one hole, called the "Cloaca".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca
However, when they lay an egg, they turn it inside out. Think bird goatse...
http://www.afn.org/~poultry/egghen.htm
This was FPd on Reddit yesterday. I have noticed a lot of recycled reddshit on here lately.
After reading report, Taco Bell officials claim to be "unimpressed" with this discovery.
...of the old joke about the worm looking out the bird's ass as they fly high in the sky...
"You wouldn't shit me, would ya?"
In 100,000 years, they'll stop passing through the birds altogether and start latching onto the stomach lining to leech nutrients from the host.
In 200,000 years, they'll develop an acid-based circulatory system analogous to the host's stomach.
In 500,000 years, they'll develop exoskeletons to better locate new hosts.
In 1 MILLION years, they'll grow too large to subsist on stomach linings. Then, they'll start bursting out of the host's chest cavity. I think we'd better nip this on in the bud.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Next paid upgrade for Angry Birds will include the power-up that will let your bird to crap snails on the unsuspecting pigs.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I'd take it over flying standby on a puddle jumper.
...makes you immediately think of Stargate Atlantis. Apparently Dictionary.com says it's "a light plane, especially one traveling only short distances or making many stops." Huh, never heard that one before.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I confess I haven't read it. But...all these people asking questions...
The summary says "15% survive". Not "15% survive unscathed."
To all the people wondering about what's special about the remaining 15%... well...
I remind you--you could live if I tore your arm off seared the arteries shut.
For those 15% coming out a bird's ass alive--I imagine they aren't exactly in great shape.
Not surprising a snail can survive a few hours in a bird's gut.
The question is how can a bird survive passing a snail through its gut.
But man that's a shitty life.
Since they came through alive, I'd say they survived ingestion, not digestion.
the first thing i thought of was using Zerg Overlords for transport. I used to use mind control a lot in Broodwar and always felt like I shouldn't use the Overlords to transport Protoss troops, because ew.
When my dad was in his teens, WAY back when, he was fishing for eels out on the ice of Sag Harbor bay.
You cut a hole in the ice and jabbed the eel spear into the mud on the bottom. The eels would get caught between the tines, and you'd pull up the pole and let the eel squirm out into the bucket. Sometimes, you'd get one that was much too small, and you just shake it off on the ice near the hole.
Well, a seagull came down and grabbed the eel before it could escape back under the ice. The bird gobbled it down, but it took a few tries. The bird stood there, watching and waiting for any more. A few minutes later, the bird started doing a funny kind of dance, and the previously devoured eel slid right out the back of the bird.
Still alive, highly pissed off and wriggling like crazy to get back in the water.
The seagull just turned around, grabbed it and swallowed it down again.
It stayed in that time.
[End Of Line]
I beg to differ...
"hmm this quarter pounder came back out about the same, I suppose it's ok to give it pass #2" <chomp>
Miller Lite tastes like water that's somehow managed to rot.