{"id":32406,"date":"2024-07-02T19:10:37","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T17:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?p=32406"},"modified":"2024-07-02T20:12:27","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T18:12:27","slug":"a-pulsating-snail-in-the-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?p=32406","title":{"rendered":"A pulsating snail in the garden!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This must qualify as the weirdest organism I\u2019ve found in my garden and likely to give me nightmares, so you are warned! A snail and bird parasite that develops in the snail&#8217;s tentacles, mimicking a caterpillar by pulsating. I had never heard of such a thing and wondered what the hell was going on, some kind of weird snail sex or maybe some psychedelic mushroom had got into the dinner! The snail is an amber snail \/ storravsnegl (<em>Succinea putris<\/em>).<br \/>An explanation of the part of the life cycle of the\u00a0<b>green-banded broodsac <\/b>or <em>L\u2060eucochloridium paradoxum\u00a0<\/em>I had witnessed can be read below the video and pictures.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 790px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-32406-1\" width=\"790\" height=\"444\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Snail_parasite2.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Snail_parasite2.mp4\">http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Snail_parasite2.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 790px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-32406-2\" width=\"790\" height=\"444\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Snail_parasite1.mp4?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Snail_parasite1.mp4\">http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Snail_parasite1.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32410\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/P7013089.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"605\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/P7013089.jpg 600w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/P7013089-298x300.jpg 298w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/P7013089-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-32411\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/P7013087.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"593\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/P7013087.jpg 800w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/P7013087-300x222.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/P7013087-768x569.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/P7013087-640x474.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><br \/>The following is copied from <a href=\"https:\/\/animaldiversity.org\/accounts\/Leucochloridium_paradoxum\">https:\/\/animaldiversity.org\/accounts\/Leucochloridium_paradoxum<\/a><br \/><em>&#8220;Two visible changes in the snail occur as a result of the accumulation of sporocysts. First, the snail&#8217;s tentacles enlarge and pulse in vivid colors. Secondly, the instinctively photophobic snail becomes photophylic and climbs to the tops of trees and grasses. This conspicuous sight looks like a caterpillar to passing birds. The birds swoop down and consume the snail and unknowingly inoculate themselves with Leucochloridium paradoxum. The worm continues its development within the bird&#8217;s gut and ultimately ends up in the rectum where its eggs are flushed out with waste. Another snail consumes the excreted egg and the cycle continues&#8221;<br \/><br \/><br \/><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This must qualify as the weirdest organism I\u2019ve found in my garden and likely to give me nightmares, so you are warned! A snail and bird parasite that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5081,2279],"tags":[5082,5083,5085,5086,5084],"class_list":["post-32406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-molluscs","category-parasitic","tag-green-banded-broodsac","tag-leucochloridium-paradoxum","tag-storravsnegl","tag-succinea-putris","tag-tentacles"],"views":2165,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32406"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32419,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32406\/revisions\/32419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}