this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
103 points (98.1% liked)
Asklemmy
43668 readers
2158 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Some species of snails are infected with a parasitic flatworm called Leucochloridium paradoxum, which has a life cycle that involves manipulating the snail's behavior and appearance to increase its own chances of survival. The parasite causes the snail's eyes to turn into worm-like protrusions, which are actually just the parasite's own larvae.
To birds, these worm-like eyes look like tasty little morsels, and they'll often peck at them to eat them. But in doing so, they're actually ingesting the parasite's larvae, which then complete their life cycle inside the bird's digestive system.
they are then pooped out onto other snails? How does this life cycle work
The larvae (possibly not quite the right word) eaten by the birds lodge in the intestinal tract near the cloaca. The eggs they produce are passed out, and snails eat the eggs.
~This comment is best read with Hans Zimmer's "The Circle of Life" playing in the background.~
Snails eat eggs???
Yes, but not deliberately - I think it depends on the species, but they'll eat decomposing plant matter, faecal matter, carrion, soil, fungi. They're not too picky. If the bird guano contains tiny flatworm eggs, bad news for the snail.
Aww
That's rough, oof!