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 starspirit rated 19 months ago - If the French had teeth like the Iwasaki snail-eating snake, they wouldn't need tongs and tiny forks to eat escargot.
The Japanese snake, Pareas iwasakii, preys mostly on snails and slugs, but its jaws are too weak to crush snail shells. Instead, it uses pin-sharp teeth to grab a snail'...
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1 Reviews
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- starspirit rated 19 months ago
- If the French had teeth like the Iwasaki snail-eating snake, they wouldn't need tongs and tiny forks to eat escargot.
The Japanese snake, Pareas iwasakii, preys mostly on snails and slugs, but its jaws are too weak to crush snail shells. Instead, it uses pin-sharp teeth to grab a snail's body and tug it from its shell. Most snails have shells that swirl to the right in a clockwise direction. So the snake has evolved an upper jaw with more teeth on the right side than the left.
A new study finds that the lopsided-jaw design helps the snake extract and scarf down its slimy meal.
Video: Right-swirling shell makes for easy pickings
Researchers led by Masaki Hoso at Kyoto University filmed four Iwasaki snakes feeding on snails with either left- or right-swirling shells. Videos show the snakes sneaking up on a snail, grabbing it by its foot, and then yanking it out of its shell with alternate retractions of their left and right jaws, a movement that some researchers call "mandible walking."
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