so snails there's way more to these
speed deficient invertebrates than what
meets the eye the field has a huge
collection of snails and slugs more than
4.5 million specimens many of the snails
are represented by their shells and if
you're wondering what the difference is
that slugs are basically just homeless
snails they're all gastropods a group
which falls under the mollusk umbrella
and there may be as many as 60 to 80
thousand species of slugs and snails
today they've been able to live nearly
everywhere on earth from tree to land
and stream all the way to hydrothermal
vents a mile and a half below the
surface of the Indian Ocean in fact 30%
of the fields collection of snails are
marine and I wanted to learn more about
them so we went to go find an expert
hello I'm Johan and I'm the Collections
Manager of invertebrates in the Field
Museum yo can you've pulled so many
diverse amazing sales but there's one
thing that unites all of the ones that
we have here they're all marine snails
the one I wanted to start with is this
unique character here because he's in a
jar unlike the other yes the other
snails we have feel like this scaly
footage scaly footage I've been calling
it the magneto snail there's a good
reason for that right so um some of the
populations have actually been found to
be magnetic because they have the iron
sulfide equivalent of magnetite in their
exoskeleton no other snail has that and
in fact no other animal in the world
uses iron an iron compound for its
skeleton because it comes from
hydrothermal vents deep in the indian
ocean they are able to make energy rich
substances out of sulfur in a process
somewhat similar to photosynthesis in
the lit area oh yeah yes I mean it seems
like a fairly sophisticated biology for
something that most people might take
for granted is a rather simple oh yeah I
mean more organism but most people think
of snail as a very slow and kind of
primitive animal they have evolved into
so many different and highly
sophisticated life forms the violet
snails here drifts over the oceans on a
bubble raft that it produces itself and
it's hanging upside down on the bubble
raft do you see that they are actually
darker on the underside which is showing
up and lighter on the top side that is
hanging down and that's kind of a
countershading principle turned upside
down if you have a fish for example the
fish is usually light on the belly and
dark on the back and here it's just the
other way around and that's kind of a
that's a camouflage mechanism
it's a camouflage it's harder to see it
from the top down and from the bottom up
marine snails conquer all marine in
you can imagine they reach from above
the waterline like these guys here all
the way down to the deep sea like for
example our magnetars nail here on the
other hand it goes all the way through
the other side too for example these
cones nails and there are 500 different
species or so of them most of them are
predators that eat marine worms and
there are also ones that eat actually
fish now you would think a fish is much
faster than a snail and I said you know
they are not that slow all of them still
they are much slower than a fish yeah so
they have to sneak up on them they also
have a venom gland that produces a very
effective nerve venom these have these
regular teeth modified into a hollow
heart pool and they deposit some of the
venom in the hollow part of that needle
then they sneak up on the fish very
slowly stretch out the proboscis so that
the fish doesn't get startled and then
very fast sting the fish the fish is
paralyzed within seconds and at that
point the the snail can open up their
mouth so bite that they engulf the
entire fish and start or digested oh my
gosh within all of that within the the
diversity in the diet and the habitat
you also have like such remarkable shape
and size diversity - I can't help but
look at how massive this thing is this
is ceilings are honest it's believed to
be the largest living snail species and
then on the other end of the spectrum
you have the Omalu Jerry day do you see
this yeah it's a yes and that's
back
it's about point three millimeters but
it's a complete shell we want to close
on on what I find to be the most
exciting species that we have here I
mean I believe I call them hoarders at
one point and I told you they're not
Hollis they are collectors yes these are
the carrier shells the xena for a day
you see actually it is a relatively
regular and unser
ocular shell but if you turn around this
way you see that all sorts of things are
attached to that chill when it is life
the the foot and the head come out here
the snail decides that it wants to
attach a new object
it actually manipulates that object well
it's the wrong word really because it
manipulated with a food so it pedeu
lates the object to the edge where new
shell material is secreted it holds it
there so long until the cement is dry so
to speak what is the purpose of this is
this like a little snail going around
and just being like like this so I'm
just gonna put star ahead boop boop boop
like making a beautiful hat in certain
cases it is clear that it's a camouflage
I mean this does really not look like a
snail at all it looks like a pile of old
stuff yeah we find it pretty I think
it's gorgeous I mean it has pretty
gorgeous it looks like it looks like a
beautiful lady's hat from the early 20th
century and if you look at this it has
actually a real shell collection yeah
and its shell there are at least six I
think different species involved here I
mean it's like a birder of the
shell collecting world it's just like
got a life list that it's going through
they may have a different lifestyle that
we don't know about I mean there is
still a lot that we don't know about the
life of these animals we just barely
scratched the surface and we have
hundreds of years to go to figure that
out I'm excited I will be watching the
snail world fastidiously from now on
very good Jochen would you would you
mind maybe playing us up off on this one
that was a grand performance thank you
the brain scoop is made possible by the
Field Museum and the Harris family
foundation still has brains on it