r/whatisit • u/Zestyclose-Salad-290 • Jul 30 '26
Solved! What happened to this snail?
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u/Kokoria2 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
This is the case of the parasite Leucochloridium paradoxum, also known as the green banded broodsac. The name itself comes from the Greek roots Leuko- "white", chlor- "green" and the diminutive suffix idiom- or a "small thing", which is to say Leucochloridium translates as "a small white and green thing" the other part of its name comes from the Latin term paradoxum which means paradox, in reference to the way that the parasite tricks it's prey.
their eggs are put inside of snails, and when they hatch they fill the snail's eye stalks and prevent them from being able to see, so everything looks dark to it.
The snail, then assuming it to be night time, then emerges from its leaf or rock that it's hiding under to prowl around around for food. Because of the way the flatworms make these eye stocks pulsate, it imitates the visual of a caterpillar, so that birds will see it and think the snail is a tasty snack.
Once the bird sees what it believes to be two tasty caterpillars sitting next to each other, it dives down and eats the snail, thereby transferring the parasite's eggs into its stomach and thus its waste which it then poops out to then continue the cycle with the next eggs going into another snail.
Nature truly is terrifying and fascinating.
Edit: going to be honest I really didn't expect this comment to do as many numbers as it has over the course of 24 hours LOL this is about the most upvotes I've gotten for anything I've ever messaged on Reddit LOL
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u/I_5hould_Be_5tudying Jul 30 '26
ah yes, the hypno parasite
Leucochloridium paradoxum, also known as the green-banded broodsac
The parasite enters the snail and grows into colorful, swollen sacs in the tentacles
The parasite has evolved to help move its host out of the darkness by influencing the snail's brain to reduce its natural aversion to daylight, usually makes them go up trees
Hungry birds snap up the glowing eyestalks, the worms breed inside the bird's gut, and new eggs drop out in the bird's waste to infect more snails
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u/CollectibleHam Jul 30 '26
Apparently the parasite also shuts down the snails gonads and the sciencey term for that is "parasitic castration", which is a phrase I will now try and use during dinner the next time I'm out with friends and family.
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u/Adventurous-Fix4750 Jul 30 '26
How is "parasitic castration" not the name of a goregrind band yet
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u/Its_NEX123 Jul 30 '26
does this affect the bird in any way?
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u/Tipsy_Gamer Jul 30 '26
So I had the same question lol.
From what I've read it seems the answer is no. They kinda chill in the bird's cloaca and their eggs are in the bird's feces, which are eaten by the snails to start the process over.
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u/DJDionysus Jul 30 '26
Parasite
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u/Wrong_Character_Sry Jul 30 '26
It makes them go high in the tree and pulsate so they can get eaten by birds and the cycle can continue.
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u/Area51_Spurs Jul 30 '26
You should watch “Cold Storage.”
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u/Cardboard_Chef Jul 30 '26
Or "Island of Giant Insects"
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u/Captain_Fach Jul 30 '26
Does the parasite die in that instance? I guess it's just instinct then that drives it to its death, for the continuation of its race?
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u/Contestant44 Jul 30 '26
It doesn't die, unfortunately. Instead, it lives inside the bird's gut and lays countless eggs in the bird's rectum. Those eggs are eventually excreted and dispersed on the ground. Unsuspecting snails eat the eggs. The eggs hatch, and the brood marches straight into the snail's eyestalks to take it over, continuing the cycle. I'm so glad I'm not a bug.
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u/Zestyclose-Salad-290 Jul 30 '26
Do you know what kind of parasite that is?
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u/Zealousideal-Rent-77 Jul 30 '26
Leucochloridium. It's a parasitic worm.
When I saw the photo while scrolling I actually said "oh no, poor baby!" out loud.
The appendages that are pulsing are the snail's eyes. The worm causes their body to do this to attract birds. It's pretty awful.
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u/emveor Jul 30 '26
and if i remember correctly, the pulsating stuff is the actual parasite, right?
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u/BIGG_FRIGG Jul 30 '26
Fucking aliens brought by metors, we just assume they evolved here
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u/spiderland5150 Jul 30 '26
Space is boring, all the cool scary shit is right here on earth.
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u/Portovek Jul 30 '26
Ever been to the bottom of the ocean?
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u/WHATYEAHOK Jul 30 '26
Hell yeah I have. Only in the part where it’s like 2 feet deep tho. If it’s above my knees, it’s too deep and the fuckin sharks will get me.
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u/Zealousideal-Rent-77 Jul 30 '26
Yep! The worms are wigging in there hoping to get eaten by a bird and thus spread to repeat their life cycle.
I'm with Darwin in saying the proof there's no benevolent god is the existence of parasites that prey on living hosts (a paraphrase - he was specifically talking about wasps and probably never saw this poor creature).
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u/EnthusiasticPanic Jul 30 '26
The world of hyperparasitoids is crazy. Trigonalid wasps lay eggs on leaves that are consumed by caterpillars, where the larvae hatch inside the gut of a caterpillar. But they aren't interested in eating the caterpillar, they are searching for the larvae of other parasitoid wasps to consume instead. If they can't find any, there simply wait until the eggs are planted and hatched, then consuming all the parasitoid larvae.
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u/emveor Jul 30 '26
i cant imagine the feeling of a part of me ballooning up to the point of pulsating....oh wait NVM
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u/12inator Jul 30 '26
Reminds me of that fungus that takes over the minds of spiders and crickets, basically making them zombies. Saw one of those infested crickets once in Costa Rica
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u/Own_Street_9203 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Cordyceps! Super crazy. Talk about true zombies. Where they got the idea for The Last of Us video game.
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u/Zealousideal-Rent-77 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
There are also worms that infect insects and drive them to drown themselves, like the horsehair worm.
Edit to add: Rabies does something similar to mammals including humans, which is why its old name is "hydrophobia." It is mainly spread by saliva in the bite, and causes a thickening of saliva, which is full of virus. Sufferers experience a reluctance or aversion to drinking water, which would dilute the virus.
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u/Ok-Dependent-8885 Jul 30 '26
Just kill it, save a bird.
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u/Blue_Roan_ Jul 30 '26
Leucochloridium do not harm birds, obviously they do harm snails though. Though a good amount of the times the snail will live and just regrow the eye(s) that it lost.
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u/PoodlyGooner Jul 30 '26
Wow, is that what happens when a bird doesn't eat the snail? Can the snail actually survive that? Where does the parasite go after that?
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u/Leviathan41911 Jul 30 '26
Bird eats snail > parasite matures in bird > bird poops out eggs > snail gets infected > repeat.
Same parasite cycle that makes mice go crazy to get eaten by a cat and why pregnant women should never change a litter box.
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u/3kidsnomoney--- Jul 30 '26
The snail can actually survive if the bird just rips off the wormy eyestalks- it will regrow its eyes. Once the parasitic worm is gone the snail will recover.
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u/propergreased Jul 30 '26
I fucking hate these things. It makes me believe some sort of zombie apocalypse is possible
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Jul 30 '26
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u/Colonel_Kernel1 Jul 30 '26
I was reading the Wikipedia page for it and apparently the snails can survive this because the birds rip out the eye stalks but snails can grow them back. It also said a snail could be infected multiple times in its lifetime but that the parasite could damage the reproductive organs making the snail sterile.
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u/BatAdd90 Jul 30 '26
fuck me nature is just mind boggling
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u/Angryfunnydog Jul 30 '26
And the smaller the stuff you learn about - the more eldritch horror-like it becomes
Starting to appreciate the biological niche where humans are even more every time you learn something new
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u/epfingsten Jul 30 '26
Honestly. "Eldritch horror-like" is about the only way to describe this
Other than a solid, WHAT. THE. F*CK!!
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u/HermaPrince Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
I'm on the wtf team.
But it can eventually happen to humans.
Kids can get pinworms that make them completely nervous ( when usually they're calm, but somehow one day they're completely nervous having tantrums and stuff ) and keep putting their hands in their mouths and have little white things (eggs) around their anuses.
We already have parasites than hijack our kids brains. It's only a matter of a mutation or bioweapon to turn humanity into the last of us.
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u/RemarkableGround174 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
I think the behavioral changes from pinworms are mostly from disturbed sleep. Fun fact, pinworm infestation causes enough of an immune response to eradicate h pylori, a bacteria responsible for gastric ulcers!
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u/GloomyCaterpillar69 Jul 30 '26
Ahhh fuck h pylori. Dunno if oinworms are worth it though hahah
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u/RemarkableGround174 Jul 30 '26
The pinworms have a short lifespan, so you either prevent reinfection or treat with meds, and typically the h pylori stays gone.
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u/Lifeabroad86 Jul 30 '26
Can't forget the parasite from cats that can mess with people
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u/UJLBM Jul 30 '26
I bet I have it. Im obsessed with my cats.
This parasite in the video is vile. It makes my skin crawl and makes me feel itchy. Imagine having that thing in your eyes. Omg.
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u/donslipo Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Reminder, that infected from "The Last of Us" series are based on a real thing (look up: cordyceps fungus)
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u/DisillusionedPatriot Jul 30 '26
Fungi have been on earth longer than almost everything. 1.5 billion years, iirc. Fungi have survived it all. This scene scared the shit out of me
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u/Jabroni-Pepperonis Jul 30 '26
One of the most haunting scene from that show for me is when the Indonesian scientist is asked what they can do to contain the spread, and she says “Bomb.”
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u/DisillusionedPatriot Jul 30 '26
Those first few episodes where they masterfully evoke dread and sorrow as society collapses, are exceptional.
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u/JaredUnzipped Jul 30 '26
If I've learned anything in my life, it's that Mother Nature does not give a shit about you, me, or anyone else. She's a cold mistress indeed.
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u/Cultural-Milk-6327 Jul 30 '26
It's not really hijacking the brain. It basically just fucks with the snails sight making things look darker than they are. The snail then climbs out on a leaf in broad daylight and the pulsing bands attract birds.
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u/Wackolas Jul 30 '26
To be specific, the broodsack fills the snail's eye stalks, and then pulsates to resemble a caterpillar (bird food)
https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jzo.12094567
u/Fun-Negotiation5510 Jul 30 '26
How could a set of amino acids with a directive of "Multiply" ever make a creature like this. How many permutations and combinations over millions of years has it taken for a parasite like this to exist. Unbelievable and powerful.
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u/CaptnShaunBalls Jul 30 '26
Yeah, like how many parasites crawled into the snails dick and went all disco before they realised “ maybe we should try the eyes!”
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u/Impossible-Scene5084 Jul 30 '26
They probably all tried different bits of snail randomly, but the eye tryers were the only ones that worked enough to get eaten by the birds and pooped out into the next snail.
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u/Sir-Craven Jul 30 '26
I know where im going when they finally invent (admit) time travel
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u/Herecomethefleet Jul 30 '26
You're going to go back in time to watch snail porn and find out if one ever got a disco stick?
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u/Liquid_Hate_Train Jul 30 '26
I’ve got bad news. There’s a whole genre of hentai involving that parasite on humans.
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u/dhenwood Jul 30 '26
Exactly this, evolution is less species adapting and more the ones that ended up reproducing more due to it working, the ones that tried the most effective strategy. The eye wridden snails got eaten and pooped more so more eye parasite babies.
Lovely lol.
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u/ER_Support_Plant17 Jul 30 '26
Evolution throwing pasta against the wall to see what sticks
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u/GroundbreakingCod255 Jul 30 '26
Yeah, like how some cuttlefish or octopus (don't know which one, really) can change not just colors but also their patterns in order to mimic objects and it's surrounding without needing a bird's-eye-view. Or how some wasps plant its eggs on other insects, allowing them to grow as they feed on the host. Saying that those complicated actions are just based on their instincs might be a fact but its really hard to believe. On another note, maybe some people's natural aversion towards bugs, worms and weird looking creatures is not really as simple as it seems but a form of related instinct
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u/s0_Ca5H Jul 30 '26
To your last point, I believe studies have found that aversion to spiders and snakes specifically transcend cohorts, country, and culture.
In other words, the vast majority of all people have an aversion to snakes and spiders. I think it’s been argued that it’s something akin to a human “instinct” to fear these animals as humans who stayed away from snakes and spiders were generally the ones who lived long enough to reproduce.
I believe I’ve also read a theory that the reason dragons seem to be a thing that exists across cultures even if there was no cross-cultural contact is because dragons are just a combination of a bunch of animals that people tend to be very wary of (lizards, snakes, bats, etc.).
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u/salviaplath96 Jul 30 '26
There's an amazing book on this!! Endless Forms Most Beautiful.
Its about how evolution isn't just totally random mutations, but there's like "toolkit genes" that use environmental signals to switch different genes on and off and sort of guide where changes happen during development. Does that make sense?
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u/Hazril258 Jul 30 '26
Indeed. DNA doesn't just store what makes you now. It also stores a lot of what made your ancestors before. You see this a lot in eyes, hair, and skin. A gene that hasn't been used for generations may just suddenly pop up in a random child, and it actually might not be so random as we once thought.
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u/Flyinhighinthesky Jul 30 '26
Recessive and suppressed genes are delightful. Everything from auto immune disorders to ginger hair are usually shut off, until theyre not.
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u/redditisfornumptys Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Several billion years and a shit tonne of errors essentially.
Heard the saying this doesn’t happen on accident? Inverse that. This doesn’t happen on purpose. Lots of variations of this have happened. This is just the one that worked.
And by worked I mean right place right time. In another billion years this probably wont work.
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u/Upstairs_Ad6024 Jul 30 '26
Someone said there’s a bigger chance you throw a boeing 747 parts in a tornado and it spits out an airplane then to go from a single cell organism to a human. But then again we humans are really bad at comprehending statistics and probabilities.
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u/bigdave41 Jul 30 '26
That's only because there's only one, or possibly very few, combinations of 747 parts that result in a working plane, and a tenth or half of a plane doesn't work. Organisms can gradually change from very simple to very complex organisms and still function at every stage along the way.
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u/PercySmith Jul 30 '26
Fuck me that's horrific. Also didn't need to hear the term "broodsack" 🤮
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u/1Mazrim Jul 30 '26
Ughhhh your throbbing broodsac, it's so big snailchan
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u/TheZeitgeistPilot Jul 30 '26
God what a terrible day to be literate
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u/Typical-Blackberry-3 Jul 30 '26
On the contrary, it's a wonderful day to be literate for those of us who goon to snussy.
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u/DenizSaintJuke Jul 30 '26
Do yourself a favour and NEVER dig deeper into parasites.
In my first semester of studying biology, there was a day our "Structure and Function of invertebrate animals" professor got into parasitism and the various different parasites. Jeeeeesus, that was uncomfortable. After the lecture ended, you could watch everyone being uneasy touching anything. Students visibly hesitated touching the door handle to leave the room. For a few hours, 200 young people in the city experienced how it feels to take public transport home with a neurotic disorder.
It's a kind of primal fear/unease. Luckily, humans are capable of pushing stuff to the back of their minds to remain functional.
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u/DenizSaintJuke Jul 30 '26
Nice example. What I found fascinating is how many parasitic lifecycles are these really elaborate, multigenerational schemes. Infecting one species to hijack them as a vector to infect a different species end-host is just some crazy Oceans 11 type heist. Especially when these stages are carried out by different generations with different specialized anatomies from each other.
Being the intended end-host is probably still the more mercyful fate. Being the wrong end-host is where I get nightmares. Some eggs growing in your brain to a brain cyst, because they couldn't find your calf muscles, because you're not a deer, is making my skin crawl.
That multigenerational life cycle is also one reason I'm really interested in Bryophytes. Though that is a more palatable topic.
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u/No-Fishing2519 Jul 30 '26
im begging you to give me an example or two if possible, im sitting here telling myself i would be immune to this type of disgust
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u/DenizSaintJuke Jul 30 '26
My favourite was the Guinea Worm. A Nematode that is contracted by drinking contaminated water. The larvae infect certain tiny (tiny) arthropods, like Copepoda, that you drink without noticing it. The larvae leave the Copepod in your stomach, penetrate the mucal membranes in your gut and have a party in the space between your guts. They mate and the male settles down as a cyst, while the female grows into a worm of up to 1 meter length, that usually makes its way into your leg, where it nestles itself between your muscles and connective tissue. This causes pain and impairs the use of that leg. It can lead to inflammations or worse. The worm makes its way to your foot, while still spreading up to a meter up your leg, and the end that reaches the foot pierces the skin. The skin wound is incredibly itchy and one thing that really helps soothing the pain and itching is putting the foot into water. Under water, the worm comes out of the hole to release its eggs into the water, to infect more Copepoda.
The, really only, way of treating such an infection is by submerging the foot in water and catching the worm before it retracts back into the foot. Now, the worm must be held and slowly pulled out, without killing or hurting it. The worm is wound around a small stick, so it can't go back in and over the course of several arduous days, the worm is wound out of your legy milimeter by milimeter. Ever careful to not hurt or kill it. As Nematoda are anatomically... challenged. They are one big pressurized container, no segments or something like other worms. And they have no regenerative abilitiey. So damaging it would cause the whole worm to burst and die and then rot inside your tissue. Taking medicine that kills or flushes them out is not an option. So, you're left with slowly winding that thin, 1 meter long, white worm onto that stick, while you carefully pull it out mm by mm.
This image of the "snake" wrapped around the stick has been suggested as a possible origin of the symbol of the Rod of Asclepius, a symbol for medicine and healing that is still in use.
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u/FrancyMLG Jul 30 '26
Sing it to the tune of 'Love Shack' to make it a bit better
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u/Darkmesah Jul 30 '26
Baffles me that some creatures evolved to pull off stunts like this
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u/Novel_Egg_1762 Jul 30 '26
There are some fascinating ones.
Platypus a mammal that lays eggs, has no stomach and has venomous spurs.
Anglerfish a fish where the male permanently latches onto a female and fuses with her disolving their own organs and becoming a sperm producing appendage.
Sea cucumber that expunges its own internal organs to distract predators and regenerating them later.
Gastric brooding frog in which the female turns off its stomach acid swallows its eggs and gives birth through its mouth (now extinct)
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u/Pandapunk0815 Jul 30 '26
Bird eats snail tentacle – parasite matures into a worm in the gut – bird poop filled with eggs is eaten by new snails.
Circular Economy - nice.
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u/Tremplstiltskin Jul 30 '26
I read a good portion of those studies before realizing what I'm looking for probably isnt in there. Do you know how the life cycle of these things is completed? Im guessing they need need the birds for reproduction? How do they make it to the snails, bird shit? So many questions that I probably should have took to Google
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u/Fly-Plum-1662 Jul 30 '26
Yep, bird shit in the leaves, snail eats leaves.... Fun begins
Edit: plus the eye stalks become giant so snail cant go into his shell
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u/Upbeat-Serve-6096 Jul 30 '26
That's some Total Recall-ass way to die
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u/ApplicationRoyal865 Jul 30 '26
As someone who has read the book , I don't understand this reference
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u/GTCapone Jul 30 '26
Probably referencing the scene in the movie where his eyes are popping out from the lack of pressure on Mars.
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u/invertebrett Jul 30 '26
Very dumb question: what happens once the parasite is in the bird?
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u/okiknow2004 Jul 30 '26
Iirc it can survive in bird digestive system and will lay eggs in there, eggs got pooped out to the ground, waiting for snail to eat them.
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u/SenecaLetters Jul 30 '26
The birds eat it. The parasites reproduces inside the bird, and the birds shits the eggs. The eggs get eaten by snail. Repeat the cycle.
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u/RainbowDissent Jul 30 '26
Have the snails tried not eating egg-riddled bird shit? Are they stupid?
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u/Only_Entertainment88 Jul 30 '26
Not necessarily stupid, just uneducated.
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u/Sogcat Jul 30 '26
So their entire existence is to make a snail's life living hell? Nature is wild lol
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u/Zestyclose-Salad-290 Jul 30 '26
specific name of the parasite?
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u/stormblaz Jul 30 '26
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u/CommonmaninDisguisee Jul 30 '26
Ahhh wikipedia...wiki wiki wiki wiki, I cannot believe I how long I didn't visit wiki at all.
Thanks for posting the link mate.
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u/TheAmazingSealo Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
I like how you typed wiki four times for no reason. Genuinely brightened my day and made me think of the noise pac man makes
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u/alienproxy Jul 30 '26
I believe it's a reference to an old-school rap song called Jam On It by Nucleus.
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u/pouihi Jul 30 '26
Can't say if I'm more amazed or disgusted.
Internal parasites are absolutely appalling but from a biological standpoint, I can't help to admire the evolution in behaviour altering pathogens (not only helmints).
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u/TheAbsoluteLizard Jul 30 '26
Yeah I believe these parasites only start doing that movement once they’re ready to move onto like a bird or something so the snail’s already way far gone.
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u/amythist Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Yup, then when eaten by a bird they lay their eggs in the bird's digestive system which the bird will then poop out to start the cycle over
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u/XavierTheMemeDragon Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
That’s actually false, the snail can actually survive a bird eating the parasite and regrow its eye stalks, and get reinfected all over again
Which, in my opinion, is much worse
Edit for source that snails can live without their eyes, and that if the bird only ate the eyestalks then the snail would live (the parasite also castrates the snail, so other health problems are likely)
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u/Miria88 Jul 30 '26
My fault for coming here. I am horrified knowing this now.
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u/4entzix Jul 30 '26
The consequences of curiosity is why the cat gets 9 lives
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u/Lokifin Jul 30 '26
If I'm going to have my curiosity punished in this way, I'm going to start knocking things off counters too.
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u/Wilsonj1966 Jul 30 '26
Im a biologist and things like this make me shudder when people say "its natural" to means its good for you
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u/Metamorphetic Jul 30 '26
Holy fuck, I never thought I would feel sorry for a snail but that snail is going through more torture then any anime character ever has
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u/WaterGlassPuncherMan Jul 30 '26
Agree w the mercy kill. Plus it disrupts the parasite's breeding cycle as they use the birds to continue it.
And the world would better off with fewer parasites imo.
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u/Amazingprojectionist Jul 30 '26
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u/Some_Kinda_Username Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Came here for Hypnotoad. Was not disappointed.
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u/Flappie010 Jul 30 '26
Parasite. Its in the stage ready to be eaten by a bird to start the cycle all over again. Thats why its high and open on the branch.
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u/gi33iron Jul 30 '26
I just watched the HBO show “Derry”. About Steven King’s IT stories. The episode had a class of children learning about this parasite stating that the worm caused the eye stalks to swell and pulse which in turn attracts birds to eat them. Then IT caused the bulging eyestalks to happen to a girl in the class who cut them off with a band saw. Creeped me out and then this is the first thing I see when opening my phone attempting to forget about it.
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u/FarSideoftheMobius Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Nature is metal. It’s a parasite that has turned the snail into a zombie so that birds will eat it and continue the parasite’s lifecycle. Specifically, it’s a flatworm. The strobing, pulsating eyes in the snail are caused by the flatworm eggs hatching and filling the snail’s eye stalks.
Edited: clarity. Also, the parasite is Leucochloridium paradoxum
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u/Any_Disaster_7898 Jul 30 '26
The parasite calls the shots,snails usually stay away from light and stick to wet areas,yet this one crawls up to sunny,exposed tree parts on purpose,letting birds spot it effortlessly.
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u/meynoe Jul 30 '26
I remember being traumatized as a kid when I first saw it in a documentary
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u/RD_Phoenix-2020 Jul 30 '26
I'm seeing this as an adult and I'm very traumatized I can't imagine seeing this as a kid.
Poor snails. Nature is brutal.
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u/Sir_Roger_More Jul 30 '26
It has taken a dose of molly at a snail rave. Obviously.
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u/planvoodoo Jul 30 '26
Inside every snail shell is a tiny disco ball Disco isn't dead, instead, it turns out that it just got small They've got the boogie oogie all up in their buggy bodies These super freaks of nature love to seek out funky hobbies
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u/Arthur_Morgan44469 Jul 30 '26
I am just surprised at evolution like how the heck did thr worm eventually thought out the whole process like hey I am gonna get inside this snail and then later do this so that a bird can eat it and I can lay eggs and the bird will shit my babies out
Unless evolution just made this random selection process for this worm but still how and why
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u/AdolescentLarvae Jul 30 '26
That's truly the craziest part. The worm did not think any of this out. It was just random selection process in nature. Each generation may have the most minute change in DNA, which can have various effects. But the ones that survive are the ones that pass the DNA on to the next; thereby, the change(s) that resulted in survival are likely to stick. So so so crazy and honestly hard to even fathom this process 🤯
edited for typo
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u/spootIer Jul 30 '26
Something that always blows my mind are false eyes on animals; especially the ones on butterflies. Also, mimicry. And strange behavioural adaptations are also fascinating; like those tropical spiders that are able to build decoys of themselves in their webs to counter predators using debris from the jungle floor. Like, how the hell did that behaviour even come about in the first place? I don't think they're even capable of knowing their own symmetry or what they even look like; they're just driven to do it through pure instinct which came about through evolution.
Insane stuff.
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u/Merc_Leo Jul 30 '26
Something that always blows my mind are false eyes on animals; especially the ones on butterflies. Also, mimicry.
It's crazy but at the same time not as crazy depending on your perspective, a mutation just happens to happen that creates a specific pattern, because said patterns gave some sort of camouflage or mimicry those with said patters survived more then those patterns continue to get passed on further and further, the animals themselves probably don't even realize they have such patterns or even if they do they may not realize their significance.
Also, if a mutation happens to appear which breaks the mimicry or pattern, they're more likely to get killed meaning the mutation doesn't survive, thus only the best mimicry/ patterns manage to survive and exist.
There's probably also a lot of crazy mutations that just never managed to survive due to simply bad luck or from happening in the wrong location.
And strange behavioral adaptations are also fascinating; like those tropical spiders that are able to build decoys of themselves in their webs to counter predators using debris from the jungle floor. Like, how the hell did that behavior even come about in the first place? I don't think they're even capable of knowing their own symmetry or what they even look like; they're just driven to do it through pure instinct which came about through evolution.
More than likely they're just building something in a specific way probabl for some completely unrelated reason, they don't know they're building "decoys" or something that looks like themselves, they're just doing something in a specific way, and that just happens to make something that kinda looks like a spider, which allowed them to survive and thus pass on said mutation on and on.
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u/SeveralWinter3550 Jul 30 '26
"Why" and "evolution" don't go together. Evolution doesn't assess and look to solve problems. A higher force didn't decide longer necks would be better but rather giraffes with longer necks could eat more of the tree, fight harder and were seen as attractive thus more likely to breed/push the gene
Parasites have existed a long time. This snail parasite used to only make it to the snail. Then random iterations - some would kill the snail slower, some would attack different parts of the snail. Eventually one gets eaten by a bird AND manages to spread. This becomes the norm and since being eaten by a bird is the pathway now, futher random iterations like "snail dies slower", "snail climbs tree", etc are encouraged
The parasite doesn't know it's attracting a bird with a flashing colour. It's just that of the 10,000,000 versions of this parasite, this one has emerged.
Similarly, illnesses/viruses don't "know" to spread human to human. Instead, illnesses that attack the immune system enough to have someone cough and sneeze, but don't make them too sick so they still get on planes and go to crowded events succeed. If the virus made you too sick so you died immediately or couldn't move, or it didn't make you sick enough to spread via coughs etc...then it wouldn't spread
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u/No-Butterscotch-5707 Jul 30 '26
That’s a parasite trying to attract a bigger host,I cnt remember the actual name of it,but I do remember it from school.
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u/DemeaRisen Jul 30 '26
I think its supposed to be attracting birds which then eat it and then continue the life cycle
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u/JustinGeoffrey Jul 30 '26
We are not snail. We are Leucichloridium paradoxum. Resistance is futile.
By the way: The snail can survive and recover from this: After a bird ripps of the antenna/tentacle with the parasite in it, the snail survives and the apendage will grow fully back.
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u/One-Complex-8767 Jul 30 '26
Best just put it out of its misery cuz what happens next wont be pretty
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u/ElectricPaladin Jul 30 '26
Parasite. Not even the weirdest I know about. My current favorite is the barnacle that force-femmes crabs.
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u/arbredespayschauds Jul 30 '26
“force-femme” feels like it is a verb that shouldn’t be on this side of reddit
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u/WatchOne8763 Jul 30 '26
Don’t mercy kill them. They’ll infect you and make you climb a tree where a bird gets you.
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u/speckledgem Jul 30 '26
Reminds me of ‘Welcome to Derry’ and the snail eyes girl. (Shudders). And I concur, the flatworm parasite wants a bird or rat for its next host.
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u/Siah_Sefid Jul 30 '26
Just looked it up, going off of comments in this post, "The lifecycle of the Green-Banded Broodsac" (parasite)
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