How Snails Work

They seem gross and bothersome at first, but once you get down to ground level and get to know snails, we’ll bet you’ll grow quite fond of them. They are living in a whole world we’re largely unaware of. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:42Josh Clark?

  Hey, everybody. If you've ever stepped on a snail and didn't feel particularly bad about it, then you should probably prepare for that to change after listening to this episode. It turns out that snails aren't just mucousy, they're a precious member of your garden club, too. So go find a snail, share an earbud with them, so you can listen to this episode together.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 2:20Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the Slowcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here, too. We're just inching along, doing things our own way, our own speed, our own time, leaving a trail of mucus behind us as we do.

• 2:33Speaker 04

  Wow, inching along, 0.5 inches per second.

• 2:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's like that one guy said, "Life is a highway. I want to ride it all night long, covering only an inch."

• 2:50Speaker 04

  Was that the parenthetical of that title?

• 2:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was, it was like, you had to read between the lines.

• 2:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:56Josh Clark?

  What a great song.

• 2:58Speaker 04

  Or play it backwards. That song, you think's great?

• 3:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I do. I do. If you take away all the "buh, buh, buh," it's actually a great song. It's very upbeat and enthusiastic and very, um, this is a good song.

• 3:12Speaker 04

  Who was that?

• 3:13Josh Clark?

  I, I don't remember. I think that might have been his only song. Although now that I've said that, I'm sure he's a huge sensation in Canada or something, and now everybody's gonna be mad at us.

• 3:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, that happens a lot.

• 3:23Josh Clark?

  We'll find out. But anyway, whoever you are out there who made that song, if you're listening, Bretton Cap off to you.

• 3:32Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 3:34Josh Clark?

  Chuck, I picked this one.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  He is Canadian, by the way.

• 3:38Josh Clark?

  I knew it, dude. I knew it.

• 3:39Speaker 04

  How does that always happen?

• 3:41Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I don't know. What's his name?

• 3:44Speaker 04

  Tom Cochrane.

• 3:45Josh Clark?

  I wanted to say Tom, but I wanted to say Tom Brokaw, and I was like, I'm not even gonna bring that up.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  And you know what? He's in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

• 3:53Josh Clark?

  Oh, my God. Sorry, Tom.

• 3:54Speaker 04

  All right, so, so much for that.

• 3:57Josh Clark?

  Okay. At any rate, hats off, Tom Cochrane, I think is what I was trying to say, right? So we're doing an episode on snails, which I'm kind of psyched about. Our new good friend Allison helped us with this one. I believe this is her second one. She's doing great.

• 4:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, was this a listener recommendation?

• 4:18Josh Clark?

  No, this was a Josh recommendation.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  Okay, I didn't know if this was, you know, we did some stuff recently with kids in the classroom, like little virtual appearances for our book, Stuff Kids Should Know.

• 4:31Josh Clark?

  Uh huh.

• 4:31Speaker 04

  And I know we got a lot of ideas and just for some reason I thought snails might have been one of those.

• 4:35Josh Clark?

  Not a single one of those kids came up with the idea of snails. It was really sad.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  Kids these days, they don't even know what snails are.

• 4:43Josh Clark?

  Snails, that was my pick and I'm not sure where it came from. I think I just pulled it out of my head. But I'm glad I did because this is one of those things where, I mean, snails are everywhere. Everyone knows where the snail is. Like, it's just a part of living on earth. You know about snails. And yet, what Allison turned up and I wasn't aware of when I selected this, there's actually a bit of a dearth of information, academic information, on snails specifically, that a lot of what we think we know about them is actually just like old yarns that gardeners have come up with over the years. So, I love topics like that. And actually, from researching this, I've come to actually really appreciate snails. Like, I actually kind of think they're cute now,

• 5:28Josh Clark?

  just from watching them in some videos.

• 5:32Speaker 04

  Well, I looked up a picture of the, and we'll talk about these in a little more detail later, but that giant African snail.

• 5:41Speaker 04

  And there was one picture of a woman holding one of these things.

• 5:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Speaker 04

  And I swear it looked like a bunny rabbit with a turtle shell.

• 5:51Josh Clark?

  Weird, I have not seen that picture.

• 5:54Speaker 04

  It looked like a bunny. I mean, it's a snail, clearly. It didn't look that much like a bunny.

• 6:00Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  I wasn't like, what in the world?

• 6:02Josh Clark?

  Maybe it was eating a bunny, is that what it was?

• 6:05Speaker 04

  I don't think so. But you were right. Allison was keen to point out that malacology, which is someone who studies mollusks, is just, I guess, there's just not a ton of those people out there. So there just tend to be more people studying, you know, furry or cuter things than snails, I guess.

• 6:23Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. And even if you do have a lot of malacologists, they're studying mollusks and snails just make up part of one class of a larger phylum of mollusca. They're part of gastropoda. And it's not just snails in gastropoda. We're talking slugs, sea slugs, conchs, whelks, limpets. Basically, all snail-like creatures are in the gastropoda class.

• 6:52Speaker 04

  So they're gastropods?

• 6:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, or gastropods.

• 6:55Speaker 04

  Okay, I didn't know how that was pronounced, so.

• 6:57Josh Clark?

  It's gotta be gastropod, right?

• 7:00Speaker 04

  I mean, I think it's gastropod, but would it be gastropoda?

• 7:04Josh Clark?

  No.

• 7:04Speaker 04

  Or is it one of those weird things that just flips when you shorten it?

• 7:07Josh Clark?

  It's that second thing.

• 7:08Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  Great.

• 7:11Josh Clark?

  So I said also, Chuck, just living on Earth, you're aware of snails. And there's a reason for that. They've been around for a really, really long time. They are everywhere. And you can, even if you're walking around Antarctica, and you look down on the ground, you might see a snail waving up to you, wearing a parka.

• 7:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. And even if, you know, snails, as we will find out, love moisture. Even if you're in the desert, even if you're in Arizona, living there in Phoenix, you might see a snail.

• 7:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 04

  Because there's still random water here and there.

• 7:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Plus, also, some of them have evolved to like, really hang on to their water better than other times, so they can survive in the desert. It's just nuts. They're everywhere. And as a matter of fact, they think that they, there's about 150,000 gastropod species in total. And remember, that includes slugs and all that stuff. But they think snail species are between 30,000 and 35,000. And I mean, you know, we think of snails as typically like the little garden snail, maybe the escargot snail. I think that's the Roman snail, if I'm not mistaken. But there are all sorts of snails. You've mentioned the giant African land snail.

• 8:31Josh Clark?

  Those things get, I saw that they get to be about the size of a human fist or bigger. That's a big snail. But on the other end, there's another type of snail that they recently discovered in I think Vietnam and Cambodia on the walls of caves, and they can fit inside like a grain of sand. They're that small. But if you look at them under a microscope, they are very clearly snails.

• 8:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I saw about 500 native species to North America, and we're generally going to be talking about, you know, sort of your average land snail. But there are snails that live exclusively in the water, under the sea. It would, you know, there's just no way we could talk about all the snails. So we're going to mainly concentrate on the kind that leave that mucousy trail on the sidewalk.

• 9:17Josh Clark?

  Right. Like, we could probably get through 34,000 species today, but definitely not 35,000.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  That's right. So we're not getting to 30.

• 9:27Josh Clark?

  Okay, so the other thing that's kind of like a bummer about snail species is that as long as we've been scientifically paying attention to snails, we've recorded more than 400 extinctions of snail species. And there's a, an Atlantic short documentary, I think it's like 12 minutes long. I think it's called Goodbye Snails. And it's set in Hawaii where they're, they're experiencing this crazy mass extinction of their native snail species that exist nowhere else in the world. And it's a really kind of a tense little documentary, but the people who are trying to rescue these snail species and

• 10:11Josh Clark?

  prevent them from extinction are really doing some amazing work over there.

• 10:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's about 1,000 of them that are land snails alone that are endangered right now. So that's, that's a lot of species to be in trouble. So that's, that's no good because as we will see, they can, there can be invasive snails and they can do some harm to the garden, but they also do a lot of great things for your garden and for the world.

• 10:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, leave the snails alone.

• 10:38Speaker 04

  You ever eat them?

• 10:40Josh Clark?

  I have like once or twice. I'm not crazy about them. No, they're not. I'm not a escargot fan. I'm a fan of the escargot joke, though.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Right, which is, uh, uh, look at that escargot. What, is that what it was?

• 10:54Josh Clark?

  Uh, what, a snail painted an ass on the side of his car?

• 10:57Speaker 04

  That's right. That's a great elementary school kid joke.

• 11:00Josh Clark?

  Yep, that's wonderful.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  Uh, I was, um, trying to remember if I've ever, I feel like I might have tried it one time many, many, many years ago. Because I do remember seeing snails floating in a buttery solution on a plate. And I think there was a little, uh, tiny tong.

• 11:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that sounds right.

• 11:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I really have a very, very faint memory. So if I did try it, I don't know under what circumstance it was, but it was a long time ago and it's, it's not something I'd really be into now.

• 11:35Josh Clark?

  They even have like a specialized plate for serving them. And it basically doubles as like a deviled egg serving plate, too. It's like, you know, got a bunch of depressions in it that the snails sit in.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  Right. I'd rather have a deviled egg. Uh, you can also eat snail eggs. Uh, they call it white caviar.

• 11:52Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah?

• 11:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a thing. There's, uh, I think it's like, uh, 130 bucks for about 1.75 ounces.

• 12:02Josh Clark?

  Wow, wow. Well, that's a lot of snail eggs now that I think about it.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, it seems like it. I mean, it looks like it comes a little tin like caviar. But, um, although I do love caviar now, I don't think I would try snail caviar.

• 12:18Josh Clark?

  Okay. Okay, I'll accept that answer.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  And I'm new, I know I've talked about I'm newish to caviar just the past couple of years. So it wasn't something I ever had until semi-recently.

• 12:28Josh Clark?

  But now you have it at dinner every night.

• 12:31Speaker 04

  No, I just, you've heard of avocado toast? Every morning I just have caviar toast. I spread it all over the biggest piece of sourdough I can.

• 12:38Josh Clark?

  With gold flakes on top.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  All right. Should we talk about the body of a snail?

• 12:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I feel like we kinda have to because there's a lot of misconceptions people have about snails, including me, as far as their body goes.

• 12:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, we can talk about their shell for a little bit. They have that, well, we'll talk about the shell kinda throughout. It's obviously a protective device. A snail can pull themselves back into that shell. And they can actually put a little, I think it's called an epigram. And that is like a, it's like a front door, basically. It's a temporary front door that they can put on the whole of that shell. So if you ever pick up a snail shell and it's covered with something, that is a temporary front door that a snail uses to keep people like you from poking around into that snail shell.

• 13:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I saw that some of them have denticles on there, like sharp, kinda tooth-like projections, so that if a predator tries to come in there after them, they'll get all torn up.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  Oh, on the epigram?

• 13:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's like those reverse tire damage things at like a car rental parking lot. It's like that, from what I understand.

• 13:53Speaker 04

  That's pretty cool. And it also keeps them moist, because what a snail does not want to do is dry out, because, once again, a snail is basically a slug with a helmet on.

• 14:06Josh Clark?

  Right. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the misconceptions of how the snail body is arranged, if we can.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  Let's do it.

• 14:15Josh Clark?

  Inside that shell is the actual body of the snail. What we see as the head and the tail is actually the head, true. But what looks like the tail is actually like the heel of its foot. That's what it's moving around on, is its foot, right?

• 14:33Speaker 04

  A single foot.

• 14:34Josh Clark?

  Exactly. And so above, on top of that foot, is the whole body, and all that is encased in the shell. And what's weird is there's one opening that the, what'd you say, covers the opening?

• 14:46Speaker 04

  The, I think it's called an epigram.

• 14:48Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  No, I'm sorry. I've been saying epigram, epiphram.

• 14:52Josh Clark?

  Epiphram.

• 14:52Speaker 04

  As in diaphragm.

• 14:53Josh Clark?

  Okay, gotcha. So what the epiphram covers is called the aperture. And on land snails, there's one aperture. There's one way in, one way out. And because all of their body is tucked up in the shell, they've still gotta poop, they've still gotta breathe, they still have to do all the stuff that requires the outside atmosphere.

• 15:13Josh Clark?

  And so what they've done is they've figured out how to double their bodies around so that their head and their tail, including their anus, are basically right next to one another at the aperture, at the opening of their shell.

• 15:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, kind of like on top of their head. And this is something called torsion, which means to twist, you know, if you've heard of something, you've heard of torsion before, probably.

• 15:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Chubby Checker was going to call his dance the torsion, and he's like, it just doesn't have the right ring.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Let's do the torsion.

• 15:43Josh Clark?

  Right. A traveler from the future came back in time and told him, no, we should, we should call this the twist, rocked out the high school dance, and that was history.

• 15:53Speaker 04

  That's pretty good. Did you, did you think of that one beforehand?

• 15:56Josh Clark?

  No.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 15:58Josh Clark?

  No, I didn't. I've just gotten that good this late in the year.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  I love it. So yeah, that, that body basically doubles back 180 degrees on top of itself. And there's a lot of debate, I mean, should we get into that, like the, the great torsion debate?

• 16:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we can at least touch on it, sure. It's almost impenetrable if you're not a malacologist.

• 16:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would say so. So as far as when torsion emerged, they're not exactly sure because you can't tell from like a fossil whether or not, you know, you can find a fossil of a shell, but the torsion is happening within the shell, so you can't really tell if it's been torsioned? Is that even a verb?

• 16:45Josh Clark?

  I don't know.

• 16:46Speaker 04

  Or torted?

• 16:46Josh Clark?

  I was gonna say torted. I didn't look it up, though, so I think tordid's right. Let's say tordid.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it's torted. So you can't really tell if it's been torted by looking at a fossil. And so there's just been a lot of debate, like, obviously, this happened for a reason. No one knows exactly what that was. And like you mentioned at the beginning, some of the sort of old farmer's tales. One of those is you might hear some gardening people say, oh, well, actually, their asymmetry inside that shell provides balance, and that's just not true.

• 17:19Josh Clark?

  No, no, that's definitely not. There's also one that back in the day when they were all marine animals, because land snails evolved from marine aquatic snails, that it was a way to keep their hindquarters, their tails, all that stuff, from being bitten by a predator.

• 17:39Speaker 04

  That would make sense.

• 17:40Josh Clark?

  It does make sense. It's probably not it. What the two biggest competing hypotheses are, the rotation hypothesis and the asymmetrical hypothesis. And the rotational hypothesis, the one that's been around since like 1929, and it basically says that at some point in the past, the snail, some snail mutant came along and twisted around during its development, and it became naturally selected because it was advantageous, because it allowed the snail to retract its head faster. Whereas before, it would have had to retract the tail and then the head. Now it could retract the head because it's all it had to retract.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, but that was just like a spontaneous thing, right?

• 18:25Josh Clark?

  That's what they think. But it's just such a bizarre thing to have happen, especially in a single mutation, because again, what we're talking about is during the larval development, a snail's body, it moves counterclockwise to 180 degrees. And so its circulatory and nervous system forms a figure eight inside the shell. It's not all just packed in there straight. It's all over the place. And because of that weird torsion thing, the entire right side of its anatomy, including its organs, are just not there. It's all left side organ stuff. It all just got moved over toward the inside of the shell because the right side is pressed up against the shell itself.

• 19:08Josh Clark?

  And it's all because of torsion, and they just cannot figure out why that would have happened in the past. And clearly, it could have happened as a, like a... Mutation, it obviously did, but why would it have been naturally selected for for hundreds of millions of years, which strongly implies that it was like an advantageous mutation?

• 19:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would think so, right?

• 19:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so that's kind of like this debate that's going on that that is, I mean, you really have to understand snail anatomy and evolutionary history to go much further in understanding that debate. That's pretty much what I could glean from the whole thing.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I would say hesitate even getting into that debate. If you've had a couple of drinks at the bar and you're feeling a little squirrely and you want to dive into this hot conversation.

• 19:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I would steer clear.

• 19:56Speaker 04

  Just take a break, have another drink and just relax.

• 19:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, or maybe it's time for you to go home.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  Right, yeah, get a, get a car to take you home or walk or whatever.

• 20:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so that's the thing.

• 20:08Speaker 04

  Be very careful.

• 20:08Josh Clark?

  Snails tort and we're not sure exactly why, but what we do know the upshot of it is that their body is double back on itself and their, their anus and their head are essentially right next to each other.

• 20:22Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly. They also have a mouth and inside that mouth is something called a radula. It's a, it has teeth on it and it's like a, it's kind of like a tongue. And they have, you know, if you look at a snail and they turn those two little tentacles to look back at you, that's because they have eyes mounted on either one or two pairs of tentacles and they can look at you. They can't hear you, they don't have ears. From what I saw, snails are basically deaf, but they can see you.

• 20:55Josh Clark?

  They can see you and depending on the species, there's different types of eyes. Some have very simple eyes where they can detect changes in light and dark or maybe, maybe movement, but there's some kinds, I think, that have the ability to, to, to see you, to focus on you. And because they're on the ends of those stalks, they can retract the eyes themselves in the stalk and then the stalk into the head and then the head into the shell. And then when they want to see if danger's gone, they can peek one of those stalks out from the shell and look around. Isn't that cool?

• 21:30Speaker 04

  That's pretty cool.

• 21:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 21:32Speaker 04

  I love it. And there's also the mantle and the mantle will come up quite a bit. And the best I could figure is that mantle is that area around the rim of the shell that connects the foot and the head to the shell itself, right?

• 21:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it's also whatever holds all of our organs and guts in place, that membrane is very analogous to the mantle tissue of the of the snail because it holds all the organs in place, but it also does something really important. It secretes all of the stuff that eventually is built into the shell itself.

• 22:04Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 22:05Josh Clark?

  So are we at the shell part, do you think?

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Uh, you know what? This is a good, we're 20 minutes in. I think we should take a break.

• 22:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 22:14Speaker 04

  Because that shell formation is quite a cliffhanger.

• 22:16Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 22:17Speaker 04

  And we'll be right back after this.

• 22:31Speaker 05

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 22:34Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 22:37Speaker 04

  That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T. And he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 22:53Speaker 05

  It was good to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 23:01Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager, Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 23:07Speaker 06

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 23:16Speaker 06

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 23:20Speaker 05

  What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 23:24Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 23:28Speaker 07

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  You know, you're never done decorating your home. You know what I mean?

• 23:37Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do or buy or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly. It's usually a new rug.

• 23:48Josh Clark?

  Well, Chuck, whether you need a rug or whatever is next for you, you can go to Wayfair. It's the smart place to get it.

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• 24:06Josh Clark?

  And with over 20 million five-star reviews, Wayfair must be doing something right. You can find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.

• 24:32Josh Clark?

  Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of VivGart, VivGart is also known as its generic name, Efgartigimod alfa Fcab, you'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.

• 24:55Speaker 03

  Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.

• 25:08Josh Clark?

  These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of VivGart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:35Speaker 04

  All right, so we promised to talk to you a little bit about the shell. A snail shell is beautiful. You should never, ever, ever smash a snail shell or a snail because that's animal cruelty and it's a terrible thing to do. So just don't do it.

• 25:51Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  But it is basically, there's a little bit of protein in there, but it's mainly something called calcium carbonate. And it is, like you said earlier, secreted by that mantle tissue. And it builds up over time. It's, if you look at sort of the center part of that shell, that's the oldest part of the shell. You can tell a snail's age by how big that shell is. And that's also the hardest part of the shell because it's been around longer. So they just keep adding material along that outer edge, little by little, as it expands outward. And that is why a, like the outer edge of a snail shell will be much more, you know, sort of breakable than the inside harder part.

• 26:32Josh Clark?

  Hmm, that makes sense. So the oldest part is the closest to the, to the center.

• 26:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:38Josh Clark?

  Apparently also, I didn't realize this, they're born with a tiny shell already attached. They just grow it over time by secreting.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  Starter, starter shell?

• 26:46Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Isn't that cute?

• 26:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:48Josh Clark?

  They're born like little tiny baby snails, like that pre-formationism theory from our things we used to believe before the scientific method episode.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 26:59Josh Clark?

  So I also said, Chuck, the mantle holds, the mantle tissue holds all the, the important guts and stuff like that in place. And the way that snails breathe is through the mantle cavity. They have blood vessels in there, but they, they breathe using kind of like a primitive. I don't want to say lung. I think that's kind of a stretch, but basically they have an opening that

• 27:22Speaker 04

  It's called a lung. I've seen it called a lung in diagrams.

• 27:25Josh Clark?

  Okay, so I've also seen it called a pneumo- pneumostome. And it's essentially a breathing port that they can open and close using their muscles. That takes in, takes in air and exhales air, but it's pretty neat and it's right there next to their head, right there at the aperture where everything else that needs to be outside is.

• 27:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they can, if we're talking about sea snails, like I said, we're not going to get too into them, but they can have similar body parts in terms of breathing, or they can also have gills kind of up front as well.

• 27:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So one of the things snails are most famous for are, is their mucus, right?

• 28:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:04Josh Clark?

  That is apparently secreted by the foot. And as the foot moves along, it's just a series of muscles that just kind of propel as they ripple, propel the snail along, but they lay down a trail of mucus that does a lot of different things. For one, it allows the snail to do some Spider-Man-esque moves, like just crawl right up the side of a building. Because it's

• 28:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:27Josh Clark?

  very strong. It's glue-like.

• 28:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. But it can be, it's funny because it can be glue-like or act as a lubricant.

• 28:34Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 28:34Speaker 04

  Which is pretty remarkable.

• 28:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So yeah, it also separates the snail from the rest of the world that it's running over. You know, it, it's strong like glue, but it also allows the snail to move smoothly. And it also protects the snail's body from sharp things that it might be crawling over, slowly crawling over. And it also keeps the moisture locked inside. So much so that snail mucin, as we'll see, has been used for millennia as like kind of a skin thing. If you have very dry skin and you can get your hands on snail mucin or mucus, it will cure your dry skin.

• 29:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, that's what keeps the, I mean, that and other things is what keeps that snail moist. So if it's, if it's keeping the snail alive, then imagine what it can do for your crow's feet.

• 29:25Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  I don't think we said what it was actually made of. It's enzymes, peptides, proteins, trace minerals, and it's, it's pretty remarkable stuff. It's, you know, the telltale sign is when you see that stuff on the sidewalk.

• 29:41Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:42Speaker 04

  And just the term snail trail itself, that sort of snotty, glistening, shiny snail trail is, you know, it's become sort of part of the lexicon to, you know, as a stand-in for other things at times.

• 29:56Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, for sure. So, one of the other things that the snail trail, the mucus trail does is it says, "Hey sailor, come, come this way."

• 30:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 30:07Josh Clark?

  Because it's one way that snails find one another to mate, which is surprising that they mate because they're hermaphroditic. They, all snails, or most species of land snails, are equipped with both male and female sex organs. And when they come together to mate, it's, there's no telling who's who or who's doing what, because in the end, both of them often come away with fertilized eggs.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, to me, this section is the most remarkable stuff about snails. How they reproduce is just amazing. They are hermaphroditic because, and it just makes sense, if you're moving 0.5 inches per second, you would die out as a species if you, if like a male had to search for a female or the other way around. So they basically just double their chances of finding somebody within the, you know, 10 feet or so that they're, they're wandering around. I mean, they, they move more than that within a lifetime, obviously, but, you know, if it's that time of year, which is what, like autumn?

• 31:11Josh Clark?

  Sure, autumn and spring.

• 31:14Speaker 04

  Autumn and spring. They're gonna wander around. They're gonna find another snail. They're gonna dance around each other, and that just means very slowly circle each other for, I saw four to six hours. I saw the whole thing can take up to 12 hours. It's a very, obviously, as you would imagine, a very slow process.

• 31:36Josh Clark?

  It is slow, but it's really involved. Like, they are really into it while they're, they're going at it.

• 31:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, they're, they're, and this is before they're going at it. This is when they're just sort of like sizing each other up.

• 31:48Josh Clark?

  They're getting steamed.

• 31:49Speaker 04

  They're touching tentacles. They're biting each other's lips. Things are getting really pretty hot and heavy in there. And then they have something that is amazing. And I don't know of any other animal that has something like this. Uh, they have something called a, a love, what they call a love dart. Uh, a love dart only forms after the first mating. So you have to have at least a little bit of sexual experience to even form a love dart.

• 32:17Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 32:17Speaker 04

  Uh, they take about a week to form and you don't always have to have one to mate. Because if you've used up your love dart and then, you know, within the week, you wanna go at it again. You, you can still do that. It's not necessary for reproduction, but it helps in reproduction. Uh, they form in the dart sack and is stored in a dart sack. And if you look at it, it's a little, it is a little dart. It's got this little sharp harpoon-like tip. And they actually, it, it says they, they shoot it, but it doesn't like fly through the air. It's more like a, they stab one another with it.

• 32:52Josh Clark?

  Oh, I imagine it like boo and then just sailing a couple of feet and then stroing.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  That would be great. It's more like it's stabbing, but apparently it's very imprecise. Uh, this hydraulic pressure builds up as they circle and bite each other's lips. And then they shoot this thing out at each other. And it can, I think about a third of the time, it doesn't even do what it's intended to do, which we'll get to in a sec, but, uh, it can pierce organs. It can go all the way through the head and out the other side. So it's, it's really crazy. It's a weird adaptation.

• 33:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, no, it's super weird. And the, the, I think what's most weird about it to me is there's other animals that do that to deliver sperm. That's, that's not what the snails are doing. These love darts deliver other hormones that help protect the sperm as it makes its way to the eggs to fertilize.

• 33:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:46Josh Clark?

  It's like a really clumsy, superfluous extra step that, like you said, doesn't even, like they, they miss a lot of the time. They still manage to fertilize eggs. It's just a very strange thing that they do, but it's part of this really long, really slimy courtship mating, you know, process that they get involved in. And then the sex itself is like, just one rubs its foot against the other foot and there you go.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Right, and they're, and they say, who's pregnant? Which, and they go, I don't know, maybe both of us.

• 34:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah, both of us.

• 34:20Speaker 04

  Actually, can it be both?

• 34:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying, like, both, both can walk away with fertilized eggs after this.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they can lay, I think they can hatch up to 450 eggs per year. Uh, and when, and that doesn't take very long, actually, right? In the gestation period, it can be like really short, right?

• 34:39Josh Clark?

  For some species, especially in captivity, it can be 24 hours. Others, it seems like the outside is four weeks, and usually in the wild, it's like two to four weeks for gestation.

• 34:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. And once those little guys are born, they, they may immediately start eating the rest of the eggs as their first meal.

• 34:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's kind of a bummer, especially because leading up to it, it's so cute. This little tiny snail with its little tiny shells inside its egg, and it starts tapping its way out till it cracks through the egg, and then, yeah, it gruesomely eats its siblings very quickly. Sometimes it'll eat smaller siblings that have already hatched, not just the eggs. What I didn't realize, though, is that some, and that's, that's actually not all snail species. There, that's ones that will eat eggs, but for the most part, they'll eat just vegetation.

• 35:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:28Josh Clark?

  Um, the snail parent will often stay nearby to provide protection for the, the young snail hatchlings for a little while.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, they hang out for a while, right?

• 35:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I did not realize that, I thought it was pretty cool.

• 35:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, they can, they can hang out for up to three months together while the parents are kind of protecting them. Uh, and like you said, they're born with that little baby shell, and it just gets bigger and bigger. Uh, they, did we talk about how long they can live?

• 35:56Josh Clark?

  No, we didn't, it's pretty spectacular.

• 35:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, in the wild, they can live up to five years, which, that shocked me, quite frankly.

• 36:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it really makes you feel bad for all those snails you've accidentally stepped on after a rainy evening.

• 36:09Speaker 04

  You you hope at least they were old.

• 36:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly. Like, they had their time.

• 36:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, uh, so five years is a pretty long time in the wild, I think. In captivity, they can live up to 25 years, which is astounding.

• 36:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's a really great little short documentary called The Strange and Wonderful World of the Snail Wrangler. It's on YouTube, and it's about this woman who takes photos of her snail friends in like little miniature settings, human settings. It's really cute. And she talks about one of her snail companions that she's been with for like 10 years. And it's just, I mean, when you think of it like that, like snails are just so, they're off doing their own thing. They live in a world far different from ours, even though we share the same geography. It's just a different world. So when you cross paths with one, you're like, hey, alien. And they're probably like, hey, giant alien. And that's it.

• 37:03Josh Clark?

  The idea that they're there in that same patch, as long as you are, in some cases, when you're like, if you live at a house for 10 years, a snail might have lived there just as long as you did for the same time. Like, you shared that with them that whole time. They're not just anonymous, generic animals running around. They're, I mean, anything that lives that long, there's just something more substantial to it than than you would think initially.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  Are you saying a snail has a soul?

• 37:35Josh Clark?

  I think it's pretty clear, yes.

• 37:38Speaker 04

  All right, so snails are doing their things. I love this account that Allison found that was a scientist from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History that said snails are leaky bags of water that survive on dry land.

• 37:52Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 37:53Speaker 04

  And it almost sounds like they're saying like they happen to survive. Because it it doesn't seem like a snail was really made for that environment, but they survive anyway. Because snails really need to stay moist. Like, a snail drying out, just like a slug, means certain death. So even though there are snails in the desert, you're mainly going to find snails in more moist areas. We're going to say that word quite a bit. I apologize.

• 38:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, unlike humans, moist is a snail's favorite word.

• 38:23Speaker 04

  It really is. They do live on the ground mainly if they're terrestrial snails, but they can live in trees. But they really like it down there on the ground in that sort of moist outer layer of decaying plant matter. They're pretty active at night because things can get wetter overnight, as we know, like when you wake up with like morning dew and stuff like that. So they're just down there on the ground, sometimes eating meat and other snails and other eggs. But generally, what they're doing is eating and munching down on that either decaying plant matter, or if you have a garden, they will also munch down on your nice new fresh plants.

• 39:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And as we'll see that they run afoul of gardeners for that reason. But just hold your horses, gardeners. Put your rubber mallets away for a second until we get to that part and talk you out of it. But in that leaf litter layer, they do a lot of really important stuff. They are in charge of like recycling plant matter, decaying stuff. They love decaying everything. In addition to live plants, too, they love dead plants. And when they're doing that, they're like recycling nutrients. They eat that stuff, they break it down and they poop it out. And that means it's bioavailable in the soil for plants to use, for other animals to come along and like that like to lick the dirt, that kind

• 39:48Josh Clark?

  of thing. They also are really important in the food web because calcium is not really easy necessarily to come by in food. At least if you're like a small, like an invertebrate or a mammal or something like that. If you eat a snail shell, you get a burst of calcium. So that snail shell is really important. And then they're also chock full of protein themselves. So they're like a really important part of any food web in the ecosystem that they live in.

• 40:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're also moving stuff around down there. I mean, plant matter and that outer layer that just sits and sits isn't great. But if you've got thousands of snails moving around through it, it's going to help drainage out, it's going to help keep distributing those nutrients. If there's, you know, it can help move dirt and clay even.

• 40:40Josh Clark?

  That's very important.

• 40:41Speaker 04

  All that stuff is great, and they can actually help pollinate, too. Some of them are nighttime pollinators. They get in there with that plant nectar, they eat that stuff, and then they poop that out as well.

• 40:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, pretty crazy. I had no idea that they were pollinators. It just makes them even more important, you know what I mean?

• 40:59Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 41:00Josh Clark?

  So I think, Chuck, we take a break and then we come back and talk about why you should leave the snails alone. How about that?

• 41:07Speaker 04

  Let's do it.

• 41:22Josh Clark?

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• 43:58Josh Clark?

  So one thing that we said earlier, Chuck, was that snails run afoul of gardeners. And the reason why is because they will, I mean, they will eat a lot of plants. The burgundy snail also knows the Roman snail, the one that's mostly used for escargot these days. They weigh 20 grams-ish as an adult, but they'll eat six grams of plant matter in a day.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:23Josh Clark?

  You have a bunch of burgundy snails running around your garden, they're gonna eat your hostas, they're gonna eat your seedlings. They're going to tick you off. And so there's a lot of, um, a lot of animosity that gardeners have towards snails and slugs too. Um, and so they, people have been trying things to get rid of snails for a very long time. The problem is, number one, you don't actually want to get rid of snails, especially native snails or common garden snails. And number two, the methods typically used are chemical and they can harm other life as well. Um, so there's, you basically want to leave the snails alone as, as much as possible.

• 45:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. Uh, there is some information here that, um, Allison got from the Royal Horticultural Society in Britain. And they say, you know, don't use chemical pesticides, please. Like, if you want to get rid of your snails, you can try and do so naturally by, uh, introducing predators. Uh, I guess, you know, you throw a bunch of garden beetles out there and see what happens.

• 45:27Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  Just say whoever, whoever walks out of here alive is, you know, deserves to live. It's like the thunderdome.

• 45:34Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 45:36Speaker 04

  Uh, two enter, one leaves.

• 45:38Josh Clark?

  As a matter of fact, if you're bored, just go ahead and build a small scale replica of the thunderdome and put this snail in the beetle in. You sicko.

• 45:46Speaker 04

  That's right. But then you have to, uh, act like Tina Turner and use that voice when, hello raggedy snail. That's what you would have to call it.

• 45:57Josh Clark?

  That was a great impression, by the way, Chuck.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 46:00Josh Clark?

  In addition to, um, putting them in a death match against beetles, um, you can go pick them out yourself. If you go out at night with a flashlight, you can pick, um, pick up, uh, plenty of snails. The thing is, you-

• 46:13Speaker 04

  Put them in your neighbor's garden?

• 46:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly. Especially if they're a jerk hosta grower. They'll really drive them crazy. Now, what you want to do is put them on your compost pile because again, they like decaying stuff and they're really useful. So they'll be pretty happy there. Um, and you can also trap them by carving out like melons or grapefruit or something like that and they'll be attracted to that. And it's just basically acts as a trap. You just throw it back on your compost pile the next day and there you go.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  All right.

• 46:41Josh Clark?

  Some people do say you, you, some people still use pesticides. If you're, if you're organic, you use feric phosphate, which interrupts their ability to digest, so they die of starvation in a few days. There's another one called metaldahide. That is hardcore stuff. It, it desiccates them, they end up dehydrating to death. And it's banned in the EU because they consider it unacceptably harmful to birds and mammals.

• 47:13Speaker 04

  Of course it is.

• 47:14Josh Clark?

  Here in the US, you can use it as much as you like.

• 47:16Speaker 04

  Of course you can.

• 47:17Josh Clark?

  And they use it for the giant African land snail in particular, because again, metaldahide is hardcore stuff. And it turns out that the giant African land snail is hardcore snail.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a hardcore snail, obviously would be an invasive species here in North America. These are the big ones, the one that look like a bunny, I thought. They can be eight inches long, they eat more than 500 species of plant, they will eat everything in its, in their paths, including in Florida, they're a real problem in Florida, apparently. They will eat the stucco off your house to get more calcium. And they can pass disease along to people and animals.

• 48:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, rat lungworm.

• 48:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, meningitis. I've seen that they're, they can carry a host of parasites, or they can host, a host of parasites. Some of which will, is, is, you know, good for the snail because it keeps animals from eating them. So it's like a defense mechanism.

• 48:19Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 48:20Speaker 04

  But that can be harmful to people at times as well.

• 48:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, you don't want rat lungworm. Like you said, it can create meningitis in humans. So it's best to not really handle snails with your bare hands and especially don't eat the snail alive from your garden. That's a really bad idea.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, but people actually collect, and I'm not sure if that's how they got here, but people collect these, you know, as an illegal pet, these giant African land snails.

• 48:47Josh Clark?

  That's my understanding, that they were imported as illegal pets, at least to South Florida.

• 48:52Speaker 04

  What in the world are people doing?

• 48:54Josh Clark?

  I don't know, but they also have been, have shown up in some other places, including Hawaii and Polynesia, and somehow they got from Florida to these places, probably through the illegal pet trade. And so, in just typical human fashion, in the 50s, people said, well, wait, there's this snail called a rosy wolf snail, and it's a predator, it's a literal snail predator. Let's just import a bunch of them to take care of this giant African land snail, because I'm sure nothing will possibly go wrong because of this plan. It's foolproof, and that's what they did. And as a result, Hawaii has lost almost all of

• 49:35Josh Clark?

  its native snail species in the wild, because the rosy wolf snail was like, I'd just rather eat these other kinds of snails and leave the giant African snail alone.

• 49:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, these things are pretty creepy, though. I imagine there's got to be some kind of Nat Geo video of the wolf snail, like, you know, following its prey, because for a snail, they're moving pretty fast.

• 50:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 04

  When they're tracking something, they go double to triple their normal speed. They will go up a tree after something, they will go underwater after something for a little while, until they need to come up. It seems like they're just tenacious little fellas, and they will go after something until they catch it.

• 50:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and they like to swallow other snails whole, including their shell. And there's a malacologist named Harry G. Lee, who dissected a rosy wolf snail and found 13 other snails' shells in its gut.

• 50:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. It's like in a Louisiana state license plate.

• 50:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly. So yeah, you don't want these things on your beautiful pristine island. And once you bring them in, they're going to cause all sorts of problems. And that's what that goodbye snail video was about. It's definitely worth watching. But the rosy wolf snail is definitely considered invasive. And what I didn't know Chuck is the common garden snail, the one we're so familiar with, is considered invasive in the United States. Cornu aspersum, poof. That is the common garden snail. And it was originally imported because it was the one that used to be escargot. And some of them escaped from farms and set up shop in the wild. And now it's called the common garden snail because it became so prolific.

• 51:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they don't know when people started eating escargot. And I think escargot is the French name for that edible snail. And also doubles as the name of the dish.

• 51:36Josh Clark?

  Right, yeah, yeah, I think you're right. Like French fries.

• 51:39Speaker 04

  I think it's both. Yeah.

• 51:42Speaker 04

  But you know, people like this stuff. It was always, you know, growing up, you always heard about escargot was like this, you know, sort of as a kid, the first fancy weird food you'd heard of probably.

• 51:53Josh Clark?

  Like do the wealthy have no bounds kind of thing?

• 51:58Speaker 04

  Exactly. And then, you know, we've got all signs. Should we finish up with just a bunch of kind of cool factoids?

• 52:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 52:06Speaker 04

  Well, jewelry, snail shells have always, or have long been used as jewelry for humans. It's some of the oldest known human jewelry. They found this stuff, like necklaces and stuff made of sea snail shells that date back like at least 120,000 years.

• 52:24Josh Clark?

  That's nuts, man.

• 52:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, what else?

• 52:27Josh Clark?

  The author Patricia Highsmith, who was a very interesting person in her own right. She wrote Strangers on a Train and the talented Mr. Ripley novels. She was a snail pal, like the snail wrangler in that video that I talked about. And like the snail wrangler in that video that I talked about, she would go out in public with her snails as companions. There's a story of Patricia Highsmith at a party who was revealed to have dozens of snails in her purse, who she brought so she'd have someone to talk to, her snail friends.

• 52:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, how about that?

• 53:00Josh Clark?

  How about that? That's what snail people do, is that kind of thing?

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 53:04Speaker 04

  Uh, this is really interesting, is they've been studying how snails might, um, help us figure out Alzheimer's disease.

• 53:11Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:12Speaker 04

  Uh, from what I've found is they've, you know, we've talked about Alzheimer's before, which is when you have these amyloid plaque buildup, uh, or plaques, I guess, that build up on the brain tissue. And they're, they don't exactly know how it causes memory loss, but this is what they're trying to figure out with the snails.

• 53:29Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:29Speaker 04

  Uh, these plaques are formed from a protein called amyloid beta, uh, which we've talked about, or a beta, and they have taken a beta and put it on otherwise very healthy pond snails.

• 53:41Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:41Speaker 04

  I'm not, I have no idea why they chose, like, why they thought the pond snail was a good candidate to begin with.

• 53:47Josh Clark?

  They have terrible lobbying group.

• 53:49Speaker 04

  Maybe that's what it is. But they put this a beta on these healthy pond snails, and within 24 hours, they, they show evidence that they have harmed their memory, basically. But the, the finding is that they haven't found any, uh, damage to the brain tissue, like, no cell loss, no, no brain tissue damage at all.

• 54:09Josh Clark?

  Hmm.

• 54:09Speaker 04

  So basically what they're, they have sort of, you know, the result of all that is that a beta by itself can trigger the memory loss, and it's not from like, damage to the brain, or like, a deterioration of the brain.

• 54:22Josh Clark?

  Or the plaque buildup, right?

• 54:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. They think it's like a specific, uh, pathway for memory that's being damaged, and not the brain itself.

• 54:31Josh Clark?

  Thank you pond snails.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  I know, it's, it's amazing.

• 54:34Josh Clark?

  I also saw it goes the other way, too, that the co- common garden snail's mucus has been found to be bioactive as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-apoptic, which means it prevents cell death.

• 54:47Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 54:48Josh Clark?

  So they think that they, they're figuring out how to turn that into a drug to treat Alzheimer's, too. So snails are just coming at us with the one-two punch to battle Alzheimer's disease.

• 54:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:59Josh Clark?

  God bless them.

• 55:00Speaker 04

  I love it.

• 55:00Josh Clark?

  Speaking of God bless them, if you're, uh, subscribed to the West African Yoruba religion, you would say God bless the snail, because they're associated with Obitala, the sky father, as well as the Orishas, collective deities to whom the land snail, the giant African land snail in particular, is sacred.

• 55:20Speaker 04

  I gotta read this last thing. This is the only last thing I got.

• 55:23Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 55:23Speaker 04

  This Nigerian, uh, snail recipe?

• 55:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 55:27Speaker 04

  Uh, I'm not into eating snails. They call this Congo meat. It's got red pepper, habaneros.

• 55:33Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 55:34Speaker 04

  Uh, garlic, onion.

• 55:36Josh Clark?

  All right.

• 55:36Speaker 04

  And then it's seasoned with cayenne and ground crayfish.

• 55:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you lost me at habanero, but it does sound extremely interesting. I would try it. I'd just be like, can you leave the habanero out?

• 55:48Speaker 04

  Too hot?

• 55:49Josh Clark?

  Too hot.

• 55:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. Too hot for the hot tub?

• 55:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, too hot for TV. So, um, I've got one more thing, Chuck.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  Let's hear it.

• 55:59Josh Clark?

  Uh, there is a weird thing that started popping up at the end of the 13th century in northern France. If you look through illuminated manuscripts, meaning manuscripts that have the doodles in the margins and all that, like a Mad Magazine.

• 56:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:14Josh Clark?

  You will start to notice there are pictures of knights battling giant snails.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. That's so interesting.

• 56:22Josh Clark?

  And they, it lasted for like a hundred or so years as like a trend. It actually came back again for a little while in the 15th century. And no one has any idea what they were trying to say. One of the theories is that it's just hilarious that it was meant as like kind of comic relief while you're reading like this kind of heavy text or whatever. You just look over and you're like, that's a knight battling a snail.

• 56:43Speaker 04

  Right, yeah.

• 56:44Josh Clark?

  Other people say that, that snails symbolize something like superhuman strength because they carry their house on their back. I kind of poo poo that one. I like this, the comic relief one.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  And people are just like, hey, this is funny. Look at this. This knight's fighting a snail.

• 56:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, this will be good for a laugh, said the medieval monk.

• 57:01Speaker 04

  Very interesting.

• 57:03Josh Clark?

  I say so too. So if you want to know more about snails, everybody, go forth, research them. You could do worse than watching the strange and wonderful world of the snail wrangler and goodbye snails. And if you see a snail in your garden, and especially if it's not doing anything to harm things, you just tip your hat to it and say, good day, snail. You could be as much as five to 10 years old.

• 57:25Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 57:26Josh Clark?

  Chuck said that's right. That means it's time for listener mail.

• 57:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're gonna do a correction. I wish we could get this one out sooner because we're gonna continue to get emails about the great isotope ion.

• 57:42Josh Clark?

  My goodness.

• 57:43Speaker 04

  Issue.

• 57:46Speaker 04

  Which I didn't know was an issue. This was, we got a lot of them, but this is from Nick Lufti, PhD student at UC Irvine. And Nick is getting a PhD in quantum chemistry.

• 57:59Josh Clark?

  Oh, wow. Man, I want to hang out with you, Nick.

• 58:04Speaker 04

  And Nick listens with his wife, Dinah.

• 58:08Josh Clark?

  Hey, Dinah.

• 58:09Speaker 04

  And said, can't wait till we're in town for a show. But if you're at Irvine, I mean, Irvine, how far is that from San Francisco?

• 58:16Josh Clark?

  I have no idea.

• 58:18Speaker 04

  I mean, it's in the state of California, so it's gotta just be like an hour away, right?

• 58:21Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Yeah, everything in California is an hour away.

• 58:24Speaker 04

  Come see us. Hey, guys, wanted to offer a slight correction about the periodic table. Don't hate me. When you mentioned the different weighted averages being a result of different isotopes, you mentioned that it is the loss or gain of an electron that constitutes the different isotopes. This is actually incorrect. What you've defined is an ion, not an isotope. It is the varying number of neutrons that makes up the different flavors of isotopes. This is the thing that makes carbon dating possible. Love that episode, by the way. Last thing, guys, chemistry as a whole is a very inaccessible branch of STEM. I hated it. I failed my first chemistry class. And one day, our professor was out sick and the chair of the chem department came to sub in and she implored us to get a PhD in chemistry.

• 59:08Speaker 04

  I said to myself, she must be nuts. Here I am 10 years later, and I am clearly the one who is nuts. The long and short of this last bit is to never give up on science.

• 59:20Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 59:21Speaker 04

  And that again is from Nick, I think it said Lufti, but it's actually Lutfi.

• 59:27Josh Clark?

  Okay, like Chipotle or Chipotle?

• 59:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right.

• 59:32Josh Clark?

  Thanks a lot, Nick. We'll call him Nick L. from now on.

• 59:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:36Josh Clark?

  Uh, that was a great one. So everybody who wrote in to let us know, we appreciate you for doing that because we like to get things right. And that was definitely a slip up and it is something that we needed to correct for sure. So good job, Chuck, picking that one.

• 59:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:50Josh Clark?

  Well, if you want to get in touch with us and let us know we got something wrong, or we got something right, or tell us something about yourself, or your dog, or your pet goat, doesn't matter, you can send it via email to [email protected].

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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