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flyspeck snail can actually benefit from being rust by birds , according to a new study that found about 15 per centum of the snail eaten by two species of bird survived their journeying through the bird ' gut and out the other ending .
The boo appear to spread out the snail they have eaten via excrement , allow the mollusks to travel much swell distances than they couldcrawling on their own , according to the research worker lead by Shinichiro Wada of Tohoku University in Japan .
Snail travelers found in bird droppings.
The researchers screen out their hypothesis by feeding 174 escargot , a species calledTornatellidesboeningi , to four omnivorous skirt — three Japanese white - center and one brown - eared bulbul — that also prey upon them in the wild on the Japanese Ogasawara Islands . [ Album : Lost Predators Leave Broken Food Chains ]
It took 30 to 40 minute for the snails , all adults with shells about 0.1 inch ( 2.5 mm ) gamy , to pass completely through the bird ' digestive arrangement . An examination of the bird muck revealed that 14.3 percent of the escargot that had pass by through the snowy - eyes ' intestine and 16.4 percent of those that travel the browned - eared bulbul ’s guts were still alive . escargot that had not move within 12 hour were considered beat .
The researchers also find genetical grounds indicate that birds may unintentionally disperse the snails . cistron flow seem high among escargot population in different locations ; in addition , they found a positive correlation between the genetic diverseness of snail population and the density of Nipponese white - eye on Hahajima Island .
A Japanese white-eye, one of two species of bird found to disperse live snails in its droppings.
While it is well - eff that plant can spread their seeds aroundthrough bird or other brute droppings , it is rarified for animal to employ this scheme . The testicle of zooplankton — tiny floating beast in the ocean — can evanesce through Pisces the Fishes unharmed , and birds can also spread wasp larvae . Pond snails that can survive passage through the fish or ducks that eat them are the only other fuck examples of adult creature dispersing this way , the author write in the Journal of Biogeography .
The snail, Tornatellides boeningi.
