The survival secret of Japanese snails

New research by Japanese scientists shows that land snails are widely distributed in the habitat of the Ogasawara Islands of this country by surviving the bird's digestive system.

Land snails Tornatellides boeningi can survive through the bird's gastrointestinal tract. Photo: BBC

We know that, usually only seeds are released from bird manure. However, Japanese scientists have now demonstrated that even invertebrates such as tiny land snails can survive this process.

The BBC reported that in the laboratory, the leader of research group Shinchiro Wada, of Tohoku University, Japan, gave two Japanese white-eyed white-eared horseshoe Zosterops japonicus and offered brown ear crests Hypsipetes amaurotis to eat more than 174 land snails. Tornatellides boeningi to find out if these snails survived the bird's digestion.

Japanese white-eared ringbirds Zosterops japonicus. Photo: burdr.com

According to research results published in the Journal of Biological Geography, it is surprising that the survival rate of snails is quite high - corresponding to 14.3% and 16.4% - after going on a journey. strange in the digestive system of 2 birds.

' This is the first study to show that birds can actually' transport 'a significant amount of their intestinal land snails ,' said researcher Shinichiro Wada.

This can explain what is happening on Hahajima Island on the Ogasawara Islands (about 1,000km south of Tokyo, Japan) - where two species of birds and snails are living. It is a snail that takes advantage of the ' bird eaters and digests through the gastrointestinal' advantage to be able to grow on most of the other islands of Ogasawara Islands, which they would never have done without birds. .

According to scientists, the snails are very small with a body length of about 2.5 mm and this is one of the conditions that help it survive the gastrointestinal tract when being eaten by birds.'We will conduct more experiments to see if there are any other adaptations that will help land snails exist ,' Wada added.