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CLEOPATRA’S SNAIL
Natural history stories about snails and other
animals
By Julián Monge-Nájera

Edited by Katherine Bonilla Badilla and produced with the special

collaboration and supervision of Zaidett Barrientos Llosa and Carolina
Seas Carvajal

Copyright 2021 CC BY 3.0

You can reproduce and distribute, even for commercial profit, as long as you give credit to Julián
Monge-Nájera as author and explain any modifications you make to this book content.

Edited and published in Costa Rica, January 2021

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 PRESENTATION

This “digital pocketbook” is composed of short natural history stories, mostly about snails,
but also about other animals, and their often-overlooked presence along human history. Instead of
just describing their biology, the author imprints on each narration all the mystery and curiosity
subjacent in these creatures and their relationship with nature.
Hand in hand with science, and with a detailed point of view, this book will take you
through history, in a fascinating journey back to the time of the dinosaurs; Rome before the
Christian era; the Middle Ages; the golden years of Darwin and Victorian discoveries, and the
world wars of the twentieth century, always setting the scientific advances of past centuries on the
background of current science… In short, there were many moments when animals were
intertwined with human history. Although the fauna was so many times ignored or obviated, the
author makes you part of these magnificent stories, and we realize that humans have never been
alone in their historical milestones. Conversely, we are surrounded by small creatures that fight
their own battles, body armor and all, against their worse enemies and also with loyal allies,
traveling strenuous routes by sea, land and sky in an endless search, and above all, with the same
primary goal that guides us: survival.
The book includes two chapters. In the first chapter, it develops the relationship between
snails and the history of humanity, capturing the timeline from the antiquity of Cleopatra herself,
to snails in the land of Vlad Tepes, a.k.a. Dracula. It reveals how, despite the tiny size of most
species, snails have used unsuspected ways to conquer the most isolated corners of the planet.
Finally, these stories unveil curious behaviors and still-mysterious biological associations with
other animals. In chapter two, you will meet other animals, not less important of course to human
history: combining literature, science, and everyday life, the book explores little known stories of
insects, velvet worms, dinosaurs, lizards, and birds. The range of subjects is wide, including
phylogeny, the fossil record, behavior, ecological interactions, much natural history, and even
humorous mathematics.
Most probably, you will reach the conclusion that, in the natural world, there will always be more
questions than answers, but that finding them is most of the fun. Therefore, I invite you to this
adventure: come explore these marvelous beings, and, if possible, share the knowledge and
generate new insights.
.
Katherine Bonilla Badilla, Editor, Costa Rica, January 2021

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CONTENTS
PRESENTATION ............................................................................................................................. 3
CHAPTER 1. SNAILS ..................................................................................................................... 6
1. SNAILS IN HISTORY: THE MOLLUSCS BEHIND CLEOPATRA, MARC ANTHONY
AND DRACULA .......................................................................................................................... 6
1.1.1. The tiny armored knights of Saladin Castle ................................................................ 6
1.1.2. Queen Cleopatra and the mysterious snails of Volubilis ............................................ 9
1.1.3. The smallest gladiators in the Roman Colosseum .................................................... 12
1.1.4. Why did snails replace the ladies and knights of medieval castles? ......................... 15
1.1.5. The flying snails of Transylvania that shared the land with the real Dracula ........... 18
2. HOW DID THAT SNAIL GET THERE?! HOW SNAILS USE OTHER ANIMALS TO
LITERALLY FLY TO NEW PLACES ...................................................................................... 22
1.2.1. Just like humans can take a bus, a train or an airplane, freshwater snails can take a
beetle, an elephant or a duck ................................................................................................... 22
1.2.2. The mystery that haunted Darwin: how do land snails get to oases in the middle of
the Sahara desert, and to the most distant oceanic islands?..................................................... 24
1.2.3. The biography of a pond snail .................................................................................. 28
1. 3. MYSTERIES OF SNAIL BEHAVIOUR: BAT-SNAILS AND OTHER SURPRISES. 31
1.3.1. The surprising “bat snail” of Costa Rica ....................................................................... 31
1.3.2. Giant fight: New Zealand's desperate efforts to save its carnivorous snails ................. 34
1.3.3. The mysterious crystalline tentacles of snails ............................................................... 37
1.3.4. The snails that died associated with dinosaurs .............................................................. 40
1.3.4. American Bison and their unexpected effects on the water snails of the Wild West .... 44
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 46
CHAPTER 2. OTHER ANIMAL STORIES: FROM THE FIRST INSECT EVER TO
DINOSAUR INTIMACIES ............................................................................................................ 51
2.1. INSECTS.............................................................................................................................. 51
2.1.1. The world's first insect................................................................................................... 51
2.2. VELVET WORMS .............................................................................................................. 54
2.2.1. Who are the closest relatives of velvet worms? ............................................................ 54
2.3. DINOSAURS ....................................................................................................................... 57
2.3.1. The mysterious “twin dinosaurs” .................................................................................. 57
2.4. LIZARDS ............................................................................................................................. 63

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 2.4.1. If Galileo used mathematics to measure Dante’s Hell, why can’t I use ecology to count
biblical lizards? ........................................................................................................................ 63
1.5. BIRDS .............................................................................................................................. 65
1.5.1. Parrots of the Eiffel Tower: how some bird species benefit from war ..................... 65
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 69
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ................................................................................................................ 71

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 CHAPTER 1. SNAILS

1. SNAILS IN HISTORY: THE MOLLUSCS BEHIND CLEOPATRA, MARC

ANTHONY AND DRACULA
1.1.1. The tiny armored knights of Saladin Castle

Abstract: Hidden on top of a hill in Syria, tiny beings have lived for a thousand years, endowed -
like the Christian knights who in July 1188 confronted there the troops of Sultan Saladin- with
armor, digestive systems, muscles and brains. And their fight against a huge and merciless enemy
lasts to this day.

Fig. 1. Ruins of Saladin Castle in Syria. Source: Anas Al Rifai, Wikicommons

This is how the ruins of the Castle or Fortress of Saladin in Syria now look. But in the 12th
century, the fortress looked very different, because there a bloody fight took place between the
Christian knights who occupied it, and the troops of Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria. After
three days of siege, the Christians were defeated on July 30, 1188.

Fig. 2. Armament of crusader knights and Islamic soldiers, similar to the armament used in the
Saladin fortress. Source: William of Tyre, The Crusades.

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 But long before this fight, tiny beings already lived in this impressive fortress, endowed -
like the soldiers- with armor, digestive systems, muscles and brains: they were the Buliminus
labrosus snails, which would be described by science thanks to specimens collected in the fortress
in the 18th century (Olivier, 1804).

Fig. 3. The snail Buliminus labrosus. Source: Wikipedia.

Little is known about these snails, possibly due to the difficulty of studying a place
devastated by war for at least 1000 years, and that today, when I write this (2020), suffers one of
the great humanitarian tragedies of the early 21st century. But something is known, thanks to the
fact that the snails also occur in Israel, where there is a strong scientific apparatus that has studied
them, especially under the direction of the malacologist Joseph Alexander Heller (Heller, 1975).

How did the snails get in the fortress?

These snails live where the rock is rich in calcium carbonate, the same material found in
chalk and our bones. They probably came inside crevices in the rocks used to build the fort; and
maybe they also arrived by themselves from fields around the complex.
In the hills, these snails are more numerous on the sunnier southern side, but living there
comes at a cost: they must be smaller to cope with desiccation and lack of food characteristic of
the south side (Broza, & Nevo, 1996).
No one knows if the same thing happens in the fortress's south walls, but it would not be
strange, because these snails are easily isolated and genetically differentiated (Nevo, Bar-El,
Beiles, & Yom-Tov, 1982).
When the October rains arrive, they emerge from their estivation and mate. They deposit
eggs in stone crevices, and babies are born in a couple of weeks. Hiding during the day and going

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out at night to look for decomposing vegetation, their main food, which is not scarce in the
fortress.
After two years of development, these snails reach maturity and produce the next
generation.
During the drier periods, they live in groups of up to 150 animals under rocks and in
crevices. But this population of sleepers hides two sad secrets. On the one hand, there is a mouse,
of the genus Acomys that eats them to obtain water and nutrients.

Fig. 4. A species of Acomys is the natural enemy of Saladin's snails. Source: Wikipedia.

And on the other hand, like so many crusader knights who fell during the taking of the
fortress, half of the sleeping snails will never wake up from their summer sleep, victims of heat,
hunger and who knows how many invisible enemies that kill them inside their shells.

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 1.1.2. Queen Cleopatra and the mysterious snails of Volubilis

Abstract: Windswept in the middle of a forgotten valley in North Africa, an ancient city bears the
curious name of Volubilis. Volubilis exists thanks to a love story that almost everyone has heard
of, that of Antony and Cleopatra. And its ruins are home to something that should not be there: a
snail that seems to be made of marble.

Fig. 5. Ruins of the once advanced city of Volubilis, Africa. Fuente: Wikipedia.
In 45 BC the troops of Julius Caesar defeated the Numidian king Juba I. Juba committed
suicide in Tunisia, but Julius Caesar took his young son to Rome, a little boy who would be in
“preschool” if he lived in our times. Little Juba was not mistreated; on the contrary, he was treated
as a noble and received the best education, and he spoke and wrote perfect Latin and Greek. Years
passed, Julius Caesar was assassinated, and Cleopatra and Antony died, but they left behind a
daughter named Cleopatra Selena II (Roller, 2003).
In 28 BC, in need of an ally in Africa, Emperor Octavius Augustus sent Juba II to reign in
his father's country, and there his story would be joined with that of a small snail. Accompanied
by his wife Cleopatra Selena II, the wise Numidian king enlarged the ancient Carthaginian
population of Volubilis and made it capital of the kingdom.
History tells us that he and Cleopatra Selena were wise sovereigns. Juba II wrote excellent
books about archeology and Mediterranean history, as well as two zoological treatises, which
were widely cited by Pliny the Elder (Roller, 2003).

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 Fig. 6. Coin from the former Kingdom of Mauretania: obverse: Juba II of Numidia; reverse:
Cleopatra Selene II. Source: Wikimedia.
Years passed and the city was devastated by an earthquake in the 4th century, but among the
stones and vegetation, one inhabitant survived, the Cernuella virgate (Hogan, 2007) snails.

Fig. 7. The Roman snail Cernuella virgata. Source: Wikimedia.

But Cernuella virgata should not be there for a very simple reason: it is an European snail,
not an African snail.

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 How did it get there?
My hypothesis is that the snail’s arrival in Volubilis occurred in the 2nd century, when the
local revolts forced Emperor Marcus Aurelius to send Roman troops and build a wall around the
city (Rogerson, 2010).
As in the 1990s, when Iraqi snails were detected in military equipment returning to the
United States after Operation Desert Storm, Roman snails must have traveled attached to military
equipment and other supplies carried by the Roman troops. This does not exclude the possibility
that the Romans willingly took them as food, since these particular species of snail is still
consumed in Spain, where the Romans stayed for centuries.
Ironically, most of what we know about this snail's life we owe to Australian
malacologists. Why?
Because just like it went to North Africa, Cernuella virgata reached Australia, where it has
been an agricultural pest since the beginning of the 20th century. Thanks to this we know that it
reproduces in time for baby snails to enjoy the good microclimate of the rainy season, that larger
individuals lay more eggs, and that they normally stay in a restricted area (Baker, 2008),
equivalent to a human not moving in his life more than 3 km from their house. And yet they have
come a long way in these two millennia!

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 1.1.3. The smallest gladiators in the Roman Colosseum

Abstract: The reenactments of naval battles, gladiator fights and hunting of wild animals are not
the only dramas in the Roman Colosseum. Ignored by tourists and scientists alike, the coliseum
snails have been fighting their own battles for thousands of years.

Fig. 8. The historical buildings of Rome, abandoned, looked full of nature in the 17th century,
including the Colosseum, seen here on the right. Millions of insects, mollusks and plants found a
home there. Painting by W. Nieylandt. Source: Wikimedia.
Almost no one notices the small snails that are attached to the ancient walls of the Roman
Colosseum and other historical monuments of the Eternal City. They are equally ignored by
tourists and biologists. But the Polish zoologist Stefan Witold Alexandrowicz did notice, and he
has left us a nice article on the malacofauna of the Roman ruins (Alexandrowicz, 2012).
Why are snails so frequent in these ruins?
Basically, for two reasons, because they find everything they need, and because the
resources are shared. On the one hand, the ruins have rich and varied vegetation that serves as
food and protects them from the weather and enemies. In addition, the stone with which the
coliseum (actually called Circus Maximus), the forum and other Roman buildings were built, are
rich in calcium carbonate, necessary for the construction of the shells (Alexandrowicz, 2012). On
the other hand, the two dominant species specialize, one in sunny microhabitats, and the other in
shaded microhabitats, so that they do not compete directly for resources, and both thrive.
Snails are frequent on tourist trails, in vegetation and on stones. Doctor Alexandrowicz
found eight species in the coliseum, 57 % specializing in dry environments (Alexandrowicz,
2012).

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 The dominant species in the coliseum are fascinating, the "small snail" Cernuella virgata,
and the "hairy snail", Xerotricha conspurcata.
The small snail is named for the Spaniards, who eat them in "tapas" along with another,
larger, species.
This small snail has a disadvantage: when the humidity drops, it forms large groups and
enters a state of numbness.

Fig. 9. The small snail, Cernuella virgata. It usually forms large groups and is a good candidate
for human food. Remains of snail soup were reported in 2020 from a fast-food shop in Pompeii.
Source: V. Menkov, Wikimedia.
Originally, being in groups during the most defenseless period had an evolutionary
advantage: if a lizard or mouse meets a sleeping snail, there is a nearly 100 % chance that just that
snail will be eaten. But if 100 are found together, the probability of being the chosen one drops
spectacularly to 1/100 and therefore natural selection favored grouping.
But just that advantage, which worked for millions of years, was the cause of trouble for
this snail, because when humans discovered that it was easy to get many each time, they decided
that it was worth looking for them to prepare a good soup, or some other recipe of the many that
are made with abundant snails. Probably the Romans ate them, and perhaps they took the custom
to Spain, where they are still on the menu; or perhaps the Spaniards discovered the tasty meal
without the influence of Roman cuisine.
In any case, the snail has its revenge. Many carry a parasite, the worm Brachylaima cribbi.
This worm, which infected snails long before Rome was an empire, begins its cycle in another
snail, Theba pisana, and from there it passes to the small snail and, following the chain, to the

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people who eat it. And if no parishioner eats them, the parasites move to mice, birds and reptiles
to continue the cycle.
The person who eats the raw or poorly cooked snail acquires the parasite and releases it in
their feces, from where it passes to other snails and restarts the cycle.
The effects range from abdominal pain and diarrhea to dangerous changes in heart rate, but
90 % of people survive (Butcher & Grove, 2001).
The other small inhabitant of the colosseum, the hairy snail, is fascinating not only because
it is hairy, which can be said of few snails, but also because it uses love darts (Kerney, Cameron,
& Jungbluth, 1983).

Fig. 10. The hairy snail, Xerotricha conspurcata. The filaments or “hairs” are only easy to notice
in the young, and with time, the fall out. These filaments are believed to help the tiny young
adhere to the substrate. Source: Shkodër, Wikimedia.

Love darts look like arrows of calcium that the individual who will act as a male inserts in
his partner to make it open the vagina; for this, the dart carries hormones.
For millennia, this violent act of love has been repeated millions of times in the coliseum,
without anyone knowing. Nobody, of course, except for us: the reproductions of naval battles, the
gladiator fights and the hunting of animals are not the only dramas that have been lived in the
colosseum (Kerney, Cameron, & Jungbluth, 1983).

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 1.1.4. Why did snails replace the ladies and knights of medieval castles?

Abstract: In the Middle Ages, vassals cut down the vast forests than once ruled Europe, and built
stone castles, meant to be inhabited by ladies and defended by knights in armor; these people
would inspire the legends and fairy tales that still entertain our childhood. If there was no hill, the
castle was built on the plains, but it was surrounded by moats and drawbridges. Centuries passed
and cannons rendered the stone walls useless, so most of the castles were abandoned and slowly
they have been falling apart, filling the soil with calcium carbonate and cracked stones, the ideal
habitat for many land snails. When biologists looked closely at the species in these ruins, the
surprise was not only what they found, but also what they did not find.

Fig. 11. Ruins of a castle near Cork, Ireland. Source: Mycanonpictures.

In a spectacular work in which over a decade she methodically collected snails from 123
European castles, Czech malacologist Lucia Jurickova found something unexpected and perhaps
encouraging: eight species, some of them endangered, are much more common in castles than in
nature (Juřičková, 2005).
If there were tours to see snails in ruined castles, tourists could almost be guaranteed to see
three species regardless of the castle: Punctum pygmaeum, Vitrina pellucida, and Discus
rotundatus.

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 Punctum pygmaeum is, as its name suggests, tiny, measuring at most 1.5 mm in diameter
when fully grown; it is found in much of Eurasia, in mosses, lichens, fallen vegetation and stones,
even if there is little calcium. It is hermaphroditic, but has cross-mating; and it lays from 1 to 16
proportionally huge eggs.
The semi-slug Vitrina pellucida lives in forests as well as in meadows and gardens, where
it eats decomposed vegetation, but it also scrapes liverworts, carrion and feces. Their eggs are soft
and their enemies include hedgehogs and the parasitic nematode Elaphostrongylus. It is a semi-
slug because it is in the process of reducing its shell; in fact, it no longer fits in it.
The snail Discus rotundatus lives in fallen logs, litter, and even gardens, sometimes in
groups, and is unaffected by low calcium soils; it lays 20 to 50 eggs in the litter and is moderately
long-lived (3 years).
There is a second group, species that are more abundant in castles than in nature, and the
first species in this group is Balea perversa, relatively well studied, although extinct in some parts
of Europe. It lives in rocky substrates; specially if they have rough textures and are heated by the
sun; where it feeds on bacteria, algae and fungi. Like many other land snails, it produces eggs that
need a couple of weeks to hatch, and the snails become adults within a few months. It is an
unusual species because it tends to self-fertilize and keep the eggs inside the body until the babies
are born.
The second species is Clausilia dubia, remarkable for having eggs with a calcified shell (a
luxury among mollusks) and because despite its small size its lifespan exceeds 3 years. It is found
in moist microhabitats on the ground, trees, and rock faces. Another species that practically has
the same natural history is Clausilia parvula, but experts do not yet agree on whether it is a valid
species or is the same Clausilia dubia.
The species Alinda biplicata is relatively large (2 cm long), long-lived (6 years) and
produces up to 50 babies per year; it can lay eggs or retain them in the body until they hatch.
Next on the list is Pupilla muscorum, is found in dunes, stones and leaf litter; its
reproductive tract is like a production line with a row of embryos in sequential stages of
development, something spectacular and atypical among mollusks. It is also extraordinary for
having the digestive enzymes needed to digest live vegetation (many snails can only digest
decomposing vegetation).
The tiny Vallonia costata is almost invisible and inhabits grasslands, rocky areas and
dunes. It lives for several years and every 1-4 days it lays an egg, which gives it enormous power
of reproduction, which, together with its ability to live in sunny and dry places, explains why it is
found throughout the Mediterranean basin.

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 Fig. 12. In my sketchbook: three snails that are in practically every castle (top row); six species
that are more abundant in castles than in nature, and, below in blue background, the two species
that should be common in castles but, for unknown reasons, are not.
Finally, a snail with a nice Latin name that means "stone killer", Helicigona lapicida,
scrapes cyanobacteria and lichens from stones, even from gravestones in cemeteries. It is large (2
cm in diameter) and in an experiment in which specimens were marked, it was found that in one
year the majority did not move more than 10 meters from the original location.
What do these species, so successful in castles, have in common?
That question has yet to be answered. Furthermore, there are two species that seem ideal to
abound in castles, but are not: Vertigo pygmaea and Merdigera obscura (Juřičková, 2005).
As its name suggests, Vertigo pygmaea is small and is found in moist and dry habitats. It is
relatively abundant and, given its ecological needs, one might expect it to be common in castles,
but it is only found in one out of ten castles, and as a rule, in small numbers. The other, Merdigera
obscura, is seen with some frequency on logs, stones and litter, even on walls, but it is also rare in
castles. Why?
Even with her in-depth knowledge of European snails, Dr. Jurickova has yet to find the
answer (Juřičková, 2005).

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 1.1.5. The flying snails of Transylvania that shared the land with the real Dracula

Abstract: In his 1897 novel Dracula, Bram Stoker used Transylvanian nature as background, but
besides the wolves, he did not turn animals into characters for his novel. This led me to inquiry
about what kind of land snails inhabit the Carpathian forest that so much scared Jonathan Harker
in the land of Vlad Dracula.

Fig. 13. Vlad Tepes (Dracula) and Transylvania castle. Modified from Young
Shanahan and Trafalgar.

In Dracula, Bram Stoker commented that the Transylvanian landscape was among the last
unknown regions left in Europe; but, luckily, if you want to learn about Transylvanian land snails,
there is a recent study about the snails of Cheile Vârghișului, one of the snail rich limestone areas
of the Carpathians (Gheoca, 2016).

And the report is surprising; I expected some monster snails fit to keep company with
vampires, but no, the snails are tiny, many are endangered, and in some cases, we only know that
they exist and little else.

The Carpathian forest is abundant in the common beech (Fagus sylvatica); home to
wolves, bears, boars and roe deer, and scary at night:

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 “Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder and a
sharper howling—that of wolves—which affected both the horses and myself in the same way—
for I was minded to jump from the calèche and run, whilst they reared again and plunged madly,
so that the driver had to use all his great strength to keep them from bolting” (Stoker, 1897).

The limestone habitats, which from a distance look like giant skulls, have large
populations of tiny snails, like the cylinder snail (Truncatellina cylindrica) and the corn snail
(Granaria frumentum). The greener parts are dominated by the so-called door snails or clausiliids,
mostly the rippled snail (Laciniaria plicata), the filigree snail (Ruthenica filograna) and the
bogatense snail (Alopia bogatensis). Here are some watercolor sketches I made to give you an
idea of what these snails look like:

Fig. 14. In my sketchbook: overview of Transylvanian snails.

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 The cylinder snail, Truncatellina cylindrica

Let us start with the cylinder snail (Truncatellina cylindrica); unlike the other species from this
forest, we know a bit about this snail, humorously called by Prof. Kirchner and colleagues “the
flying snail” for the reason we will soon see.

The 2 mm long shell is a beautiful golden brown, and its growth interruptions are a hint
that the animal survives the winter but stops growing during that difficult season.

It is found in sunny areas, and curiously, this snail used the stonecrop plant (Sedum) as a
roof, thousands of years before these particular plants became common in our own green roofs
(sempergreen.com).

In the second half of the year, the snail lays up to 11 eggs, smaller than a ball-pen dot,
which surprisingly are protected by calcium like the eggs of vertebrates. After three weeks, the
eggs hatch, and the snails live a maximum of 2 years.

Snails of this size are thought to be transported by the wind over long distances, even over
the sea, and that is why they have been called “flying snails” ( Kirchner, Krätzner, & Welter-
Schultes, 1997).

The cylinder snail can become common in abandoned castles, but suffer when the castles
are restored and they lose their microhabitats (Alexandrowicz, 2013).

The corn snail, Granaria frumentum

The second snail in our list, the 8 mm long corn snail, Granaria frumentum, grows better
in the northern slope of hills, just like its relatives in the Fortress of Saladin (see the Saladin article
from this series (Gittenberger, 1973).

Nobody knows why for this particular species, but it may be that the northern side is
moister and thus, richer in food and less demanding physiologically. The effect of climate on
shell size is used to estimate the temperature in archaeological and fossil sites where the snail
remains are found (Sólymos, & Sümegi, 1997).

The poor snail is the sole victim of larvae of the parasitoid fly Pherbellia limbate
(Nerudova-Horsakova, Murphy, & Vala, 2016).

The rippled snail Laciniaria plicata

At 4 cm long, the rippled snail Laciniaria plicata is a giant among door snails, which are
normally under 1 cm long; little is known about its biology, but quite curiously it has been found
attached to frogs (Kolenda, Najbar, Kusmierek, & Maltz, 2017).

Other than that, I could find almost nothing about the rippled snail of Transylvania.

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 The filigree snail, Ruthenica filograna

The filigree snail, Ruthenica filograna, is 9 mm long, pale yellowish brown, and curiously
the shape of its aperture changes greatly from region to region, but nobody knows if this is an
adaptation for local conditions or a random mutation (Szybiak, & Leśniewska, 2008).

Unlike the fictional vampires, it seems to do well in sunny spots and can dig itself into the
soil when cool and dry weather make it necessary. Filigree snails become adults in 3-6 months
(Szybiak, Gabała, & Leśniewska, 2015).

They like to live in litter of hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) and ash (Fraxinus excelsior), but
avoid the litter of oak (Quercus), sycamore (Acer pseudo-platanus) and aspen (Populus tremula),
which may be unedible to them (Szybiak, Błoszyk, Koralewska-Batura, & Gołdyn, 2009).

The bogatensis snail, Alopia bogatensis

The bogatensis snail, Alopia bogatensis, is horny yellowish, intermediate in size (19 mm)
and seems to prefer humid limestone habitats in mountains. Where it occurs, it dominates other
snails and reaches large densities (Gheoca, 2016).

Unlike most land snails, members of the Clausiliidae family are almost exclusively
sinistral. And in the case of the genus Alopia to which bogatensis belongs, both sinistral and
dextral species are known, but they seem to appear at random. Again, nobody knows why a
direction for growth has not been fixed in these mysterious animals (Fehér, Németh, Nicoară, &
Szekeres, 2013).

Will the Carpathian snails disappear soon into the darkness of the Transylvanian night?

The Carpathian snails are threatened by continuous habitat destruction, and in some cases,
they represent the last populations of species now extinct in other parts of Europe. Their survival
depends on the persistence of limestone habitats with good moisture and vegetation, or, for other
species, on the availability of forest with appropriate litter (Gheoca, 2016). Let us hope they stay
with us for many years to come.

I can only wonder if, at any time in his life, perhaps as a child, Vlad Dracula took a
moment to observe any of these snails that inhabited his beautiful but suffering land.

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2. HOW DID THAT SNAIL GET THERE?! HOW SNAILS USE OTHER
ANIMALS TO LITERALLY FLY TO NEW PLACES

1.2.1. Just like humans can take a bus, a train or an airplane, freshwater snails can take
a beetle, an elephant or a duck

Abstract: Documented cases of freshwater snails using unexpected means of

transportation explain how these slow animals reach ponds, lakes and rivers separated by land or
ocean, with ranges that go from Canada to Brazil and the Caribbean islands.

Fig. 15. On my coffee table: ink sketches of freshwater snails that travel long distances by
riding predatory water beetles, birds and terrestrial vertebrates, including elephants.

Tiny snails of the species Fonscochlea accepta occur in hundreds of natural water springs
in the desert of central Australia: do they reach these isolated springs through underground water
connections between the springs? This is more difficult than it may sound, because the
underground water is pressurized; maybe animals carry them from spring to spring, but nobody
knows for sure (Worthington et al., 2008).

22
 There are, however, documented cases of freshwater snails that are transported by other
animals over long distances.
Adult snails, and their eggs, have been found attached to predatory freshwater beetles like
Dytiscus marginalis, Acilius sp. and Melodema coriaceum. The snails associated with these
beetles are species of Ancylidae (Rees, 1965), a family of hard-shelled gastropods that feed on
underwater microvegetation and can breathe in both water and air, thanks to having pseudo-
branchiae and lungs.
Freshwater snails have also been found in the bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), a long-
lived bird that feeds on grains and insects and migrates between South and North America (Rees,
1965).
In the 1980s, Canadian zoologist David A. Boag made experiments with young pond snails
of the species Lymnaea stagnalis, Stagnicola elodes, and Helisoma trivolvis, and found Helisoma
trivolvis could potentially survive 10 km trips along the migration routes of ducks between
Central America, the Caribbean and North America (Boag, 1986). His experiments, though, only
tested snails attached to isolated feathers, and most died from dehydration; in real life, the snails
would travel protected inside a feather coat or adhered to mud on the duck´s body, and probably
could survive much longer periods and distances.

Live snails and their eggs have also been found adhered to hair and mud in mammals, even
in African elephants that travel hundreds of kilometers per day from one watering hole to the next
(Van Leeuwen et al., 2013), but probably the best friend of freshwater snails is our species: we
carry them everywhere in our muddy boots and tools, and on a much larger scale, we have taken
them to much or the world through the huge and growing aquarium trade (Yanai, Dayan, Mienis,
& Gasith, 2017).

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 1.2.2. The mystery that haunted Darwin: how do land snails get to oases in the middle
of the Sahara desert, and to the most distant oceanic islands?

Abstract: What was Charles trying to do? Actually, he was trying to solve one of the great
mysteries of nature, how the slow and fragile land snails appear in the midst of the deadliest
deserts, and on distant islands that were never connected to a continent.

Fig. 16. I can imagine how, over 150 years ago, Emma Darwin showed her usual patience and
love when her husband Charles began to submerge land snails in sea water. Here, Charles Darwin
as a child.
Charles Lyell, whose geology book was instrumental in Darwin discovering how species
evolve, suggested that land snails could only have reached unexplained places by being carried by
sea or by birds. But it was just an idea; there was no evidence to support it. Like any good
scientist, Darwin did experiments in which his loving and patient wife helped, just like she played
the piano for him to find out if earthworms could hear (Emma studied piano with none other than
Frédéric Chopin!).

24
 With the snail experiments, Darwin found that Helix pomatia snails survived 20 days in
seawater; thus, they could travel long distances in the floating vegetation that rivers carry to sea
during storms, and then start new populations in new lands (Darwin, 1859).

Fig. 17. In my sketchbook: ways in which land snails populate the world: carried by sea and air
during storms, as well as by insects and birds. The Caribbean snail Succinea riisei has been found
in the feathers of birds flying over the Arizona desert.

But Darwin's experiment did not prove that snails survived the sea voyage on floating
debris, only that it could happen. However, in 2011, Polish scientists collected vegetation brought
to the beach by a storm in the Baltic Sea, and they found several safe and healthy Cepaea
nemoralis snails; these snails continue to lay fertilized eggs for more than a year after mating, so
one is enough to establish an entire new population (Ożgo, Örstan, Kirschenstein, & Cameron,
2016).

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 But an even more incredible way that land snails use to travel is flying, attached to insects.
Of course we would not believe this, were it not because there are a dozen cases confirmed by
science. For example, tiny Pomatias elegans travels by air attached to bumblebee legs (Rees,
1965).
The small snail Vitrina pellucida occasionally appears in the plumage of migratory birds,
which carry up to 10 snails each, for example in the carrion crow, Corvus corone, which travels
from north to south and viceversa within Eurasia. There are even more spectacular cases, such as
the Puerto Rican snail Succinea riisei found in the Arizona desert travelling over a sparrow
(Pooecetes gramineus). An even more spectacular case: eggs of Succinea snails have been found
in the middle of the Sahara desert, attached to migratory birds that travel between Africa and
Europe (Rees, 1965).

Fig. 18. Terrestrial snail eggs in birds captured in the middle of the Sahara Desert; live snails in
eagles' nests; fish feces and even in the wind; or almost extinct species that then appear on
building roofs: the travels of land snails continues to fascinate me after all these decades.

26
 In addition to long flights in migratory birds, land snails can be carried short distances by
birds that collect vegetation for their nests, for example, caracoles Fruticicola fruticum and
Zonitoides nitidus (Shikov & Vinogradov, 2013).
The snail Cochlicopa lubrica has been found in Europe in eagle nests (Aquila pomarina).
In nests, snails not only find a new place to colonize, but also a suitable microclimate and
abundant food (Maciorowski, Urbanska, & Gierszal, 2012).
Another way to "fly" is being carried away by the stormy wind, and even if the trip is only
few meters long, they can cross, for example, small water causes that would otherwise be a
barrier. This was discovered in Hawaii by placing transceptors on two foliage snail species,
Achatinella mustelina and Achatinella sowerbyana (Hall & Hadfield, 2009).
Experiments made in the 90s showed that snails that are very small, either because they are
young or because the species is small, such as Truncatellina rothi, can travel kilometers over land
and sea carried by strong storm winds (Kirchner, Krätzner, & Welter-Schultes, 1997).
Equally surprising is the case of the Vallonia, small land snails that live in vegetation next
to the water: their fossils show that at least in the latest 5 million years, their geographic ranges
always match those of certain fishes. They are land snails, but it seems that fish accidentally
swallow them when they eat vegetation from the shore. Snails survive passage through the
digestive system, and travel long distances upstream. Fish and snails are closely associated, and
with their habitats disappearing, both are becoming extinct (Altaba, 2015).
It is possible that the we are the main dispersers of land snails, and we do it by moving
soil, plants, fish and equipment worldwide. I already mentioned in this series how some snails
traveled with the Roman army and, more recently, with the US Army (See Queen Cleopatra and
the mysterious snails of Volubilis). But there are other ways, green roofs are becoming more and
more fashionable, and thanks to them, thousands of species find a habitat on houses and
buildings. Among them, snails that are rare or even extinct in some areas.
Apparently, the first to report this were the Finns, who found four species on green roofs:
Cochlicopa lubrica, Oxyloma elegans, Pseudotrichia rubiginosa, and Succinella oblonga (Páll-
Gergely, Kyrö, Lehvävirta, & Vilisics, 2014). These snails are transported in the vegetation and
soil used to build green roofs. Did you notice the cover photo of Darwin, then a child, holding a
pot that almost certainly contained many invisible invertebrate eggs?
Wind, water and other animals, from the “not so surprising” birds, to the implausible fish
and insects, are the "travel agencies" that explain the incredible ability of one of the slowest
animals ever to travel all over the world. And they, in some way, do the same for others: a recent
study found that snails are dispersers of many nematodes, which survive the digestive system of
these mollusks, just like they survive going through the digestive tracts of fish and birds (Sudhaus,
2018).

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 1.2.3. The biography of a pond snail

Abstract: Some snails appear mysteriously in temporary ponds so small that they would not be
enough to fill a large pot. How do they get there? Do all of them die when the pond dries up? And,
in that case, how does the species survive?

Fig. 19. Freshwater snails rapidly and mysteriously appear in small puddles, far from any ponds
or streams, how do they get there? Source: Wikimedia.

In order to understand the life of the pond snails that appear mysteriously all over the
world, even in rain pools, I chose Aplexa hypnorum as an example, a typical snail of that group for
which there is a nice study, done by malacologists Cornelis den Hartog and L. de Wolf, from the
Netherlands Hydrological Institute, in a small irrigation canal conveniently located only 50 m
away from their office (Den Hartog, & De Wolf, 1962).

Their study is more or less as old as I am: they started it when my mother was 7 months
pregnant. The name hypnorum (sleeper) refers to the ability of surviving inactive in very dry or
very cold periods.
Impressively, sometimes this water snail lives in large numbers in ponds just a couple of
centimeters deep, as seen in the vicinity of Doorwerth Castle (Bremekamp, 1950).

28
 Fig. 20. In my sketchbook: ecology of a typical pond snail, Aplexa hypnorum. Its natural history
has been especially studied in the Netherlands, where it is abundant around Doorwerth Castle.

These snails are found in all kinds of ponds, from cultivated open areas to swampy areas
next to lakes and forests. Stagnant water is their home, as long as the acidity ranges from pH 5 to
9.

The biography of this snail, called in English “moss bladder snail”, begins with an egg; a
few days before the pond dries, the snails migrate to the bottom and attach their eggs to
vegetation, pieces of wood and even stones, just in the level that will retain moisture the longest.
The eggs, each 1mm long, are kept moist and protected in a gelatinous bag with up to 25 eggs,
and hatch two weeks later (Den Hartog, 1963).

How long do they need to mature? According to some authors, two months; according to
others, two years. We don't know if these very different values are errors or if there really is so
much variability from one place to another. In any case, it is suspected that some of these snails
live up to four years, but in this there is also a lot of room to investigate (Den Hartog, 1963).

In addition to drought, there is another hard period for Aplexa hypnorum: when winter
starts, ponds freeze and both eggs and some snails of various ages enter a period of inactivity,

29
their breathing is reduced to the minimum needed to maintain vital functions. Many do not
survive, especially the older ones, but those who do survive awaken with spring in late March. In
some cases, a second generation is born in October, joining the spring generation, and possibly in
other places, reproduction occurs at other times of the year (Den Hartog, 1963).

After drought or cold, the key for the snails is to eat well to grow as quickly as possible.
Ponds have two sources of food, what falls from the surrounding land, such as leaves and
branches; and the vegetation and aquatic organisms typical of the pond. Snails eat all kinds of
decomposing plant and animal matter, including carrion. They are often low in nutrients, which
explain why they eat almost constantly. This aspect, to my knowledge, has not been noticed by
those who have studied them, but it must have a marked effect on the evolution of this snail,
which is often seen floating upside down and feeding on the invisible plankton that floats on the
water. Occasionally, the snails seem to be outside the water, thanks to a little trick: when the snail
scrapes algae from emerged vegetation, it stays inside an almost invisible blanket of water that
prevents desiccation (Den Hartog, 1963).

Aplexa hypnorum is the water snail that lives closest to the polar circle (74 degrees north
latitude), and survives 13 degrees Celsius below zero (Gold, 1975). It is not yet known how it
reaches the most remote ponds, but it is believed that eggs and young can be transported by birds,
insects, mammals and floods (See my article on dispersal).
Compared to other snails, Aplexa hypnorum is a detritivore of organic-rich temporary ponds, in
which it has an advantage over species that need cleaner or more durable waters (Brown, 1982); it
produces a mucus that is toxic to limnaeid snails such as Galba truncatula and Omphiscola
glabra, which, not surprisingly, are its direct competitors: they live in the same places and feed on
the same resources (Brown, 1982).
The snail also has tiny enemies, it is host to the single-cell parasite Pfeifferinella
ellipsoides, which apparently does little harm (Fritsche, 1987), and for millions of years, it has
waged a war against the larvae of the so-called "snail-killing flies" such as Atrichomelina pubera
(Foote et al., 1960) and Platygymnopa helicis (Wirth, 1971).
Fossils indicate that Aplexa hypnorum lived in much of Europe during the Pleistocene, a
million years ago, but the modification that the European landscape has undergone in recent
decades has been taking away its habitats: today it is extinct in Sweden, and has become rare in
the rest of the continent (it is still debated whether it also occurs in North America). Perhaps for
humans this snail is useless, although it must have an arsenal of powerful substances to avoid
infections in the stagnant waters where it lives. But its spectacular ability to live in ponds a few
centimeters deep, ponds that dry and freeze annually deserves our respect and admiration.

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 1. 3. MYSTERIES OF SNAIL BEHAVIOUR: BAT-SNAILS AND OTHER
SURPRISES

1.3.1. The surprising “bat snail” of Costa Rica

Abstract: The cloud forest of Costa Rica is home to an extraordinary snail, with a
behavior sometimes reminiscent of bats, sometimes of domestic cats. Its survival seems likely
thanks to the hydroelectric production program of Costa Rica, one of the world’s most advanced
countries in carbon neutrality.

Fig. 21. The Costa Rican “bat snail”. Photograph: Zaidett Barrientos Llosa.
Snails do not have dry skin to protect them from dehydration, and they need abundant
water to produce the jelly-like substance on which they glide. They do everything to conserve
humidity: their shells are usually light-colored and therefore reflect more heat; in addition, shells
prevent the passage of water; snails prefer to be active at night or when the humidity is high after
rain, and if necessary, they seal their shell, either with a calcareous lid (operculum) or with a
temporary membrane (epiphragm). Their relatives, slugs, can even produce a mucous cocoon that
they reinforce with moss and dirt.
The snail Tikoconus costarricanus has an additional technique to conserve valuable
moisture. Costa Rican biologist Zaidett Barrientos studied it in the Río Macho Forest Reserve
(maintained as an aquifer security by the Costa Rican Electricity Institute) and observed
something that no one had seen: the snail was hanging like a bat (Barrientos, 2020).

31
 Fig. 22. Costa Rican bat snail hanging from the bottom of a leaf. Photography: Zaidett
Barrientos Llosa.
After years of work, she was able to understand what was happening: when the humidity
drops at a certain time of day, the snail begins to contract, covers its tentacles in “raises” the front
of its foot from the ground (in this case, the "ground" is the lower part of the leaf to which it is
attached). Barely hanging from the back of the foot, the snails wraps itself in its mantle as a
person would with a blanket on a cold night. Then, it enters a state of inactivity in which only its
breath is noticed, and it remains immobile until humidity increases, generally a few hours later
(Barrientos, 2020).
To become active again, it follows the opposite sequence, I suppose because snails do not
tend to complicate themselves unnecessarily: after all, they have always been seen by humans as
an example of patience and tranquility.
If you want to see this incredible behavior, the article includes several videos! Visit here.
From the point of view of these snails, their enemies can be huge, small like themselves, or
invisible. We know almost nothing about the enemies of Tikoconus costarricanus, but they
probably include large species, like birds and lizards, which eat them; small ones, such as
parasitoid flies and planarians, which could also eat them; and invisible enemies, like flukes,
nematodes and parasitic protozoa, which could make them sick. All this remains to be studied.
How sad would it would be to see an enemy approach you and not be able to escape
quickly! And this should be the case for snails, but not for Tikoconus costarricanus, this species
can disappear at spectacular speed!
As Barrientos discovered, in the event of danger, the snail contorts violently, detaching
itself from the leaf and instantly falling to the forest floor, where it is hidden somewhere in the
dense litter where it is almost impossible to find it (Barrientos, 2020).

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 And why did I say that it reminds us of cats, too?
Because Tikoconus costarricanus cleans itself with its tongue, just like cats do. This surely
protects it from fungi and bacteria, just as showers protects us from many skin pathogens
(Barrientos, 2020). Maybe other snails do it too, but, until the present, no one cared to study and
publish it, so we must thank this Costa Rican biologist for reporting this grooming behavior. How
many more surprising secrets does this little tropical mollusk keep?

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 1.3.2. Giant fight: New Zealand's desperate efforts to save its carnivorous snails

Abstract: Isolated from the world for 80 million years, New Zealand's giant carnivorous snails
never developed resistance to desiccation, and lack jaws. Some are in danger of extinction, and
desperate measures like spraying poison on their enemies have not worked.

Fig. 23. New Zealand giant snail. Source: Wikimedia.

New Zealand giant snails of the genus Powelliphanta come from a very ancient group,
present on the Gondwana supercontinent when the first dinosaurs appeared, but the fact that this
particular genus is found only in New Zealand suggests that it evolved less than 80 million years
ago, when the archipelago were separated from adjacent lands.
For unknown reasons, these snails do not feed on algae or decomposed vegetation. They
follow a very different path, they are carnivores, but, having no jaws, which are extraordinary in a
predator, they have to slowly scrape the meat with their toothed tongues (radulae). Its main
victims are its relatives the slugs (which are nothing more than snails without shells) and
earthworms. These snails apparently became predators independently of other carnivorous snails
such as Rumina and Euglandina.
Just as their evolution limits the way they process food, it also limits where they can live,
because they cannot seal their shell with a membrane to avoid drying out; they spend the day
hidden in the ground and come out at night to feed and mate.
Their difficulty to survive in modern times is shared with many other New Zealand species
that are the last representatives of old and less competitive groups, extinct in the rest of the world;

34
all have small and isolated populations, are large in body size, have strange diets, and live long
lives, but have few descendants (Daugherty, Gibbs, & Hitchmough, 1993).
The natural enemies of these snails include kea parrots (Nestor notabilis), kaka (Nestor
meridionalis), and weka birds (Gallirallus australis), which are also endangered and come from
ancient, rare, large and long lived species.

Fig. 24. In my sketchbook: the giant New Zealand snail, next to the map of New Zealand
and three of its natural enemies. It is also a victim of rats and other imported animals, but its
greatest enemy could be humans, who modify its habitat.
The nearly desperate efforts of New Zealanders to conserve their giant snails deserves
some space here. New Zealand is an atypical country, isolated from the world, few hardly know
that it exists, but it is a country where enormous resources are distributed among a population of
just 5 million. In other words, it is a rich country that could invest a lot in preserving its nature.
The first problem with conserving New Zealand's giant snails is their identity problem; in
other words, this genus could have fifty species, but most are not formally described or named. On
the other hand, they are slow breeders: it takes them between 5 and 8 years to reach reproductive
capacity, and in very cold climates, eggs take up to 12 months to hatch.
Conservation attempts include breeding and poisoning their enemies in the wild.
Raising them in captivity is not very promising, because each hermaphrodite individual lays at
most 10 eggs per year (Powelliphanta augusta). They require much space to survive, it is difficult

35
for them to reproduce in captivity, and giving them calcium to develop their shells kills them
(Allan, 2010).
The option of poisoning the rats that eat them has not been very successful either, because
if we carefully read the evidence presented by S.J. Bennett, we see that the benefit to snails is
doubtful (Bennett, 2001). In short, if New Zealand's giant snails will survive, it will be more likely
because their habitats are preserved pristine (Meads, Walker, & Elliott, 1984).

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 1.3.3. The mysterious crystalline tentacles of snails

Abstract: 200 years ago, an Estonian zoologist described a strange worm that lived on the skin of
freshwater snails. No one knew what it was doing there, and after 200 years, the answer is that it
may be a protector of the snail, that it may be a parasite, or maybe both. It is important to me
because I got to know these worms in person when I did my first scientific study almost four
decades ago. They looked like dozens of liquid crystal tentacles protruding from of the snail.

Fig. 25. The whitish filaments in this Stagnicola sp. snail are worms of the species Limnaea
stagnalis. Source: CC BY Michal Maňa.
When Estonian zoologist Karl von Baer, founder of embryology, dedicated the species to
Linnaeus in 1827, he knew that Chaetogaster limnaei worms always were associated with
freshwater mollusks, whether they were small clams or snails of very different species. But what
the worms were doing there was a mystery for decades, and even today, we still don't know for
sure if there is a single species of worm with two personalities, or several species at the moment
indistinguishable except for their behavior.
I met these tiny worms in the early 1980s, when, as a biology student at the University of
Costa Rica, I saw what looked like crystalline tentacles in the pond snails that I had on my desk
and that I had collected in a pond in San Pedro de Pavas (Costa Rica). They fascinated me, but I
didn't know what they were, and Dr. Pedro Morera helped me prepare some and send them to
Brazil, to be identified by an expert whose name I no longer remember.
As far as I know, the first to write that there was something strange about these worms was
E. Michelson, who in 1964 noticed that, in addition to protecting the snails from the parasite
Schistosoma mansoni, some of these worms appeared inside the snail's kidney, where they would
hardly be doing something good; but he did not know what the worms were doing there
(Michelson, 1964).

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Fig. 26. Karl Reinhold Ernst von Baer, 1792-1876, who described the worm Chaetogaster limnaei
during the reign of Charles X.
The following year, Welsh zoologist L. Gruffydd solved the first part of the problem: the
worm appeared to have two subspecies, one, Chaetogaster limnaei limnaei, lived on the skin of
the snail and ate parasitic trematodes that approached the snail, thus protecting the snail. The
other, Chaetogaster limnaei vaghini, penetrated the snails's kidney and parasitized it. He added
that when the snail died, the worms looked for new homes and took advantage of these difficult
times to mate. However, without the shelter of the snail, many died (Gruffydd, 1965).
A quarter century later, a team of investigators realized that the relationship was more
complex. Yes, the worms that stay on the skin eat everything that comes near and fits in their
mouth, protecting the snail from parasitic flukes, but if too many worms occupy a snail, they
become a burden, and the result is that over loaded snails lay fewer eggs (Stoll, Früh, Westerwald,
Hormel, & Haase, 1991).
That same year, studying Chaetogaster on the snail Helisoma anceps, it was discovered
that there are few wormsin snails when the weather is very cold, and that the worms prefer snails
infected by the trematode Halipegus occidualis, whose slow larvae are easy to capture and eat
(Fernandez, Goater, & Esch, 1991).
But the most interesting thing is that nothing can be generalized about these worms: the
conclussions are contradictory from one study to another. They protect the snail Biomphalaria
glabrata from the dreaded parasite Schistosoma mansoni, but ironically, snails with the parasite
grow better and lay more eggs! In that case, the concept of the trematode as a parasite is

38
questionable because, by definition, a parasite must do net damage to its host (Rodgers, Sandland,
Joyce, & Minchella, 2005).

Fig. 27. Some notes about the worm Chaetogaster limnaei in my sketchbook. Large numbers of
worms, similar to crystalline filaments, cover the skin of the snail in the photograph, taken by
Michal Maňas.
Earthworms prefer snails of certain species; within a species the larger and more spacious
individuals; and even if they are large, they avoid them if they lack parasites, because only
parasitized snails release the larvae that serve as food for the worm (McCaffrey, 2014). For years I
have wondered if these two "subspecies" are really two totally different species: vaghini, internal
and clearly parasitic; and limnaei, which lives outside and offers various degrees of benefit to the
snail (depending on the environment and the species of snail). A 2015 study says no, the authors
report that these worms are a rare case of “intraspecific plasticity” in which the same species can
act as a parasite or as a protector, and that it comes from an ancient worm that was an external
parasite of mollusks (Smythe, Forgrave, Patti, Hochberg, & Litvaitis, 2015).These researchers
may be right, but I will continue to doubt until there is better evidence on the extremely complex
relationship between these worms and their snails, which reminds us that, in nature, the answer is
rarely as simple as it seems.

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 1.3.4. The snails that died associated with dinosaurs

Abstract: 75 million years ago, herds of thousands of herbivorous dinosaurs (Maiasaura

peeblesorum) crossed the plains of Montana in the United States. The only similar scene that we
can see today are the large herds of wildebeest (Connochaetes spp.) that cross parts of Africa.

Fig. 28. Reconstruction of the skeleton and nest of a Cretaceous dinosaur, Maiasaura
peeblesorum. Maiasaura (the “good mother dinosaur”) is thought to be the dinosaur that produced
the dung in which many snails were preserved. Fuente: Keratops Yuta.

Just as herds of wildebeest travel accompanied by many other species; like zebras,
gazelles, cheetahs and lions; the Maisaurs migrated with spectacular animals such as early birds,
ankylosaurs, Brachiceratops, Bambiraptors and Gorgosaurs. But thousands of invertebrate species
were also with them, including land snails and freshwater snails.

40
 Fig. 29. Herds of herbivorous dinosaurs must have looked like these great herds of African
wildebeest. Source: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen.
For reasons that are unknown, many snails died while feeding on the excrement of
herbivorous dinosaurs, and thanks to their fossilization (Chin, Hartman, & Roth, 2009), we can
now rebuild that relationship that ceased to exist tens of millions of years ago. In fact, just as the
dinosaurs left, some of these snails are also extinct today, and the ones that still live are rare and
usually only found in dark corners of the forests.
Three species of freshwater snail have been found in fossilized dinosaur feces (called
coprolites ) (Chin, Hartman, & Roth, 2009). The Lioplacodes snails were conical, we know little
else about them, and they are extinct. The same can be said of the genus Viviparus. We have a
single fossil of a tiny snail, possibly almost a baby, of the genus Physa, a genus that is now
common and known as “pond snail”. If it was like its extant relatives, it had an interesting
behavior, was affected by trematode parasites, and survived the cyclical drought of its habitat (see
Biography of a pond snail).

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Fig. 30. In my sketchbook: Seven species of snails found inside fossilized dinosaur feces. The
colors and bodies are based on current relatives, but are not known with certainty; and please
remember: throughout this book, my drawings are quick freehand sketches, not scientific
illustrations.

42
 These snails perished feeding on dinosaur feces that ended under the water in a stream,
river or flooded plain. But dinosaur feces also fell on dry ground, and were also preserved there,
nobody knows how, with snails feeding inside. We know species of four genera (Chin, Hartman,
& Roth, 2009). The most common was Megomphix, a snail the size of a human fingernail, whose
descendants are still found, though rare, in the forests of Oregon and Washington. We do not
know what they eat, or how they reproduce, or what their behavior and ecology are like. It is
ironic that we know more about their now extinct ancestors, which ate in the feces of dinosaurs;
these snails certainly deserve to be studied in depth and urgently to better understand how the life
of their ancestor could have been. The same can be said of his companions, Polygyrella and
Hendersonia. The fourth genus, Prograngerella, belongs to a totally extinct family and we know
almost nothing about it.
Surprisingly, these dinosaurs not only ate live foliage, but also fallen and half-decomposed
branches, which provided them with microorganisms and invertebrates to supplement their diet
(Chin, 2007). Among invertebrates from dinosaur feces, missing in the famous scene of the sick
Triceratops from the film Jurassic Park, there were snails, crustaceans (Chin, Feldmann, &
Tashman, 2017), beetles (Chin, Hartman, & Roth, 2009) and cockroaches (Vršanský et al., 2013);
but, for me, the most fascinating are of course the snails, animals that saw the dinosaurs come and
go, and probably will outlive our own species too.

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 1.3.4. American Bison and their unexpected effects on the water snails of the Wild West

Abstract: Thanks to the fact that a few survived the great slaughter of the 19th century, today we
can see herds of bison majestically crossing a few streams in North America. Ecologist Dwayne
W. Meadows wondered what effect the trampling of thousands of hooves can have on snails and
other small animals that live in these streams. And he not only asked, but went to find out on an
island in the Great Salt Lake, Utah.

Fig. 31. The habitat where American bison and water snails crossed ways. Source: Wikimedia.

Antelope Island, in Utah's Great Salt Lake, is a nature reserve with all the wildlife we associate
with the Old West, such as coyotes, badgers, porcupines, and bison (Meadows, 2001). But there
are also inhabitants who, although they have great ecological importance, do not appear in
cowboy movies, such as the snails from streams, rivers and swamps that, as part of the cycle of
livestock parasites, played a forgotten role in the history of the Old West.
To understand the effect of bison on snails and other freshwater organisms, ecologist Dwayne W.
Meadows compared parts of streams where bison cross the water, with calmer ones. He found
that, although, in general, both parts have the same invertebrate species, if you look closely there
are important differences. Bison hooves grind sand and pebbles, kill aquatic plants and animals,
and increase the amount of sediment dissolved in the water. Some species suffer, but others
benefit from these changes in the microhabitat.

44
 Fig. 32. In my sketchbook: the three species of this story.
An example of the species that benefit from the passage of bison are snails of the genus Physella
or Physa (perhaps Physella gyrina, common in the area, although Dr. Meadows did not identify
the species): this snail lives better in shallow, muddy waters, which are richer in algae and debris
that are their food.
On the other hand, the snails of the genus Stagnicola (perhaps Stagnicola montanensis, typical of
the region) are scarce where bison cross; they are more common in the quiet parts of streams, with
coarse sand, clean water, and denser aquatic vegetation, characteristics that, thanks to the work of
another American malacologist, Dwight W. Taylor, are known to favor them (Taylor et al.,
1963).
When preparing this article, I was pleased to learn that Dr. Taylor, whom we knew in Costa Rica
as “don Guillermo” (Barrientos & Springer, 2007), had done this study of snails from the
American West just when I was a little boy speaking my first, clumsy words. Who would have
imagined that decades later we both would meet, and that I would help edit his magnificent
monograph on the physical snails of the world? (Taylor, 2003).

45
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 CHAPTER 2. OTHER ANIMAL STORIES: FROM THE FIRST INSECT
EVER TO DINOSAUR INTIMACIES
2.1. INSECTS
2.1.1. The world's first insect

Abstract: If we could visit the earth more than 400 million years ago, to see the first insect,
ancestor of all the millions of species of insects that live today, what would it be like? How did
that first insect behave? What did it eat and who were its enemies? Incredible as it may seem, we
can answer all this and even more: DNA analysis indicates that today there is an animal that
profoundly resembles that first insect, and you can see it with your own eyes!

Fig. 33. Devonian microlandscape: the earth 400 million years ago, when the first insects
appeared. Painting: Deposits Online.
At the beginning of the Devonian period, when terrestrial ecosystems were still young and
very different from today; and the continents were unrecognizable to us, the female of a tiny
animal underwent an inheritable mutation that made her the ancestor of all insects that currently
populate Planet Earth, by millions of species and billions of individuals.

51
 Since I was a student I was fascinated by the mysterious origin of these animals: what
would those first insects look like? Could they fly? I read everything that fell into my hands,
especially a very nice article by Dr. Jarmila Kukalova-Peck (Kukalova‐Peck, 1978); I wrote to her
asking for more information and she treated me with the greatest kindness and sent other papers
and a letter explaining her work; I was so excited with the subject that I even built a model of the
"ancient insect" using pieces of wood and cardboard.
Years passed, I moved on to other things, and recently, I don't remember why, I asked
myself what had happened in these three and a half decades. How far has science advanced on this
question since the days when we did not analyze DNA and could only look at a few fossils
available and come up with ingenious ideas?
Fortunately, Michael S. Engel reviewed the subject a few years ago and made my job
easier (Engel, 2015). Generally, DNA studies agree with the conclusions that previous scientists
have made using only animal anatomy.
The first insects were tiny animals, a few millimeters long, that lived in the soil, probably
in cracks in the ground and under decomposed vegetation, on which they fed, along with fungi,
spores and, perhaps, bacteria and protozoa.
In the head they had external jaws, eyes and some type of sensor (predecessor of today's
complex antennae); a thorax with three pairs of legs; and an abdomen with some type of structures
at the end (sensory or for mating).
The life of the first insects began with the male demonstrating his strength to the female in
some way, in some kind of “dance”, and if she accepted it, he deposited on the ground a drop or
structure with his sperm, which she collected to fertilize her eggs. There was no metamorphosis,
instead of a larva, what emerged from the egg was a tiny version of the adult, which just grew
with each molt. And they could they fly: the first insects lacked wings. Their enemies must have
included parasites such as viruses, bacteria, protozoa, fungi and nematodes, which to date
continue to parasitize insects. Their predators were probably spiders and scorpions; little else was
living on land at the time.
400 million years ago a spectacular mutation had already taken place: from lateral
elongations that perhaps allowed the insect to warm up or glide, mobile wings arose, surely using
the same genes that are responsible for moving the legs of insects. This, of course, happened
somehow, but we still have no evidence of how exactly it happened.
The next big advances were: being able to fold the wings to protect them; the appearance
of larvae that did not compete with adults for the same food; and, in the time of the dinosaurs, the
formation of societies like those of ants, termites and bees; as well as a fruitful relationship with
flowers that lasts to this day (pollination).
We already know what the first insects were like; now let's see who their closest relatives
are today, and why I say not only that they look alike, but that we can see them with our own
eyes.

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 This is the closest thing to an ancient insect, the silverfish:

Fig. 34. Silverfish, Zygentoma, an animal that greatly resembles the first insect ever to walk the
earth (walk, because the first insects could not fly). Photography: Fritz Geller-Grimm.
If you are thinking that the silverfish does not look like a butterfly, fly or whatever comes
to your mind when you think of an insect, you are right. But if we compare it with the nymph of a
primitive insect, the Mayfly, the resemblance is striking:

Fig. 35. Mayfly nymph, a primitive insect whose adult lives only for a few days. This “baby
insect” or nymph looks like the first insect ever. Photography: Amada44.

We can see silverfish with our own eyes because they are found in many houses, where they eat
every starchy product they find, as well as paper and cardboard, which is why they are particularly
feared in libraries. Unlike insects, which evolutionarily explored all kinds of bodies and lifestyles,
the silverfish is the conservative relative, which lives today almost as its predecessors lived 400
million years ago, opening a wonderful window to the Devonian, the cradle of land life.

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 2.2. VELVET WORMS

2.2.1. Who are the closest relatives of velvet worms?

Abstract: These mysterious worms hunt with an instantaneous net and many do not lay eggs,
instead giving birth to young that they feed through a placenta, just like mammals. They are
known from fossils over 500 million years old and until recently, there was a heated debate about
which animals were their closest relatives. But recent genetic analyses tell us who was right all
along.

Fig. 36. Velvet worm. Source: Alex Anderson.

Velvet worms, or onychophorans, have interested evolutionary researchers since the 19th
century (Monge-Nájera, 2020). Recent work by Laumer et al. (2019) (Laumer et al., 2019), while
still far from conclusive, shows a tendency for three groups to appear close together in DNA
analyses: onychophorans, arthropods and tardigrades; and a bit less closely, nematodes and
priapulids.
Let us take an imaginary look of how they came to be the animals that we know today, on
the assumption that the work by Laumer et al. (2019) gives us a reliable view of their evolutionary
history (Laumer et al., 2019).
By using, as basis, the characters shared by the five groups, I think that their common
ancestor lived in the ocean over 530 million years ago, in the early Cambrian. It probably was a
very small worm, in the range of a few millimeters in length, with a cuticle that was molted when
the animal grew and that could develop spines. The sensory organs —for chemicals, vision and
others— were concentrated on the front, forming a head, and the brain was connected with the
rest of the body by a ventral nerve cord. In both females and males, sexual and excretory organs
opened in the rear (where the excretions did not interfere with the sensory organs). Digestion was

54
done by a longitudinal tube aided by glands that connected to the front or mid of the digestive
tract.

Fig. 37. The evolutionary relationship of onychophorans, arthropods, tardigrades, nematodes, and
priapulids according to Laumer et al. (2019). Based on: Priapulid, Nematode, Tardigrade, Velvet
worm, Arthropod.
The first branch that evolved from this ancestor led to the priapulids, a small group of
marine predatory worms that use their spiny prosome to feed and move in their burrows (we have
early Cambrian fossils of Eximipriapulus globocaudatus, which was 1.4 cm long) (Ma et al.,
2014).
The second branching led to a far more successful group, the nematodes (Baliński, Sun, &
Dzik, 2013) , which practically have all kinds of diets and are found nearly everywhere, including
the organs of other organisms (as parasites) and the deepest communities under the surface of the
earth (Halicephalobus mephisto) (Borgonie et al., 2011).

55
 Another branch of those early worms developed legs and gave origin to tardigrades,
onychophorans and arthropods. The branch that exploited miniaturization led to tardigrades, tiny
aquatic animals that suck cell contents from plants or animals. They have eight stout, unjointed
limbs, and their miniaturization makes specialized organs of circulation or respiration
unnecessary; adaptation to their changing habitats resulted in spectacular resistance to extreme
drying and low temperatures (Cooper, 1964).
The branch that exploited life in a larger body size led to onychophorans and arthropods,
which over time would reach impressive sizes of 20 cm for onychophorans and 2.5 meters in
arthropods (Jaekelopterus rhenaniae). Luckily, we have fossils that give us an idea of how they
were. The early onychophorans were so small that they are barely visible to our naked eye; had
bodies covered with sensory papillae, protective spines and plates; and probably were predators
with a decent vision. They developed breathing tracheae and a dorsal heart to move the blood
around. Originally, they had a few pairs of relatively long, unjointed legs, but when they moved to
land, their bodies became longer and compensated this with a greater number of legs, still without
joints and shorter, which allow them to move in a funny and unexpectedly efficient way (Monge-
Nájera, & Hou, 2002).
A group of their relatives went further in armoring and locomotion, developing over time
the advanced exoskeletons and jointed legs of trilobites, shrimp and insects (Daley, Antcliffe,
Drage, & Pates, 2018)
Today, over 530 million years later, the descendants of that early tiny worm fill the planet
with a mind-boggling variety of shapes and behaviors, and will probably do so long after our
species disappears.

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 2.3. DINOSAURS

2.3.1. The mysterious “twin dinosaurs”

Abstract: 70 million years ago, two similar looking dinosaurs fed on the lush vegetation of
southern Mongolia; anyone would have thought they were closely related; but in fact, they were
not, they were the answer to a riddle: how can you be bulky enough to digest large amounts of
vegetation, and, at the same time, escape from the deadly tyrannosaurid Tarbosaurus.

Fig. 38. Mongolia today, the desertic look of the fossil grounds hide the fact that, at the time of
dinosaurs, this place had nice vegetation and abundant freshwater. Source: Wikimedia.
The southern Mongolia now looks like the Fig. 38. But 70 million years ago, it looked more like
this (Chinzorig et al., 2018):

57
Fig. 39. Botswana nowadays, compare this with figure 38 of how a similar Mongolian place looks
today. Perhaps, millions of years from now, Botswana will look like the desertic landscape of
Mongolia? Source: Wikimedia.
The Okavango delta, in Africa, gives us an idea of Mongolia at the time, but the canopy-
like forests were rich in araucarias rather than on the kind of trees that you find in Africa today. If
you could visit Mongolia in the Cretaceous, you would also see these two similar-looking
dinosaurs, Deinocheirus and Therizinosaurus:

58
 Fig. 40. Deinocheirus: notice the convergent similarity with the unrelated Therizinosaurus of
figure 41. Source: Wikimedia.

Fig. 41. Therizinosaurus, a herbivorous, or perhaps omnivorous, dinosaur that lived in Asia 70 to
65 million years ago. Source: Wikimedia.

59
 Both were as heavy as elephants, but taller (over 5 m tall and around 10 m long), and fed
mostly on vegetation; they were not unhappy about swallowing the myriad little animals that were
attached to the foliage: this complemented their diet with protein and other valuable nutrients; in
other words, both dinosaurs were herbivores with a touch of omnivory.
When I first saw reconstructions of these two animals, I thought that they were closely
related, just like two species of the same genus that coexist in place and time; at most, I imagined,
they reduced competition by a phenomenon called niche-partitioning, with Therizinosaurus
feeding on drier land and Deinocheirus closer to water (fish remains have been found associated
with its fossils).
I was surprised, then, to learn that they are unrelated, doppelgangers rather than twins.
Deinocheirus belongs to the “ostrich dinosaurs”, herbivorous (or at most, omnivorous) dinosaurs,
while Therizinosaurus evolved from carnivorous dinosaurs that secondarily became herbivores (or
slightly omnivorous). We know that both fed mostly on vegetation because of their anatomy,
adapted to the large digestive systems needed for processing plant tissue; this was one reason why
they ended up looking so similar, with pot bellies and small heads. They probably were in an
evolutionary race against predators like Tarbosaurus, and this led to them growing larger than
elephants (they similar weight is explained by the lighter bones of dinosaurs).
Other convergent adaptations were their gigantic claws:

Fig. 42. Deinocheirus arms. Source: Wikimedia.

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 Fig. 43. Therizinosaurus claw. Source: Wikimedia.

We do not know for sure if these claws were hidden among feathers, as in the above
reconstructions, based on authors who think that the hands were used only for sexual or warning
display. I personally do not find this convincing, firstly, because these animals were too large to
be covered with think plumage —they more probably were like ostriches and elephants, which
have much exposed skin to prevent over-heating; secondly, because the anatomy of their arms
show that they were spectacularly strong, and this means that they were used for something that
required physical strength, maybe, as suggested by some paleontologists, to break open termite
mounds, fight off predators and competitors, manipulate branches, extract roots from the ground,
or several of these functions. Paleontologist Lev Alexandrovich Nesov went as far as imagining
that Therizinosaurus hung from trees like sloths, but the adult dinosaurs were too heavy for this.
Let us take a closer look at each.
Deinocheirus (Lee et al., 2014) reached 11 m in length and its bones have been found with
bite marks probably made by Tarbosaurus:

Fig. 44. Imaginary encounter between Deinocheirus and Tarbosaurus. Source: Wikimedia.

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 It is related to Garudimimus, and this suggests that, just like cats, Deinocheirus became
active for several short periods both day and night.
On the other hand, Therizinosaurus (Lautenschlager, 2014), just like pandas, were
herbivores that carried the mark of their predatory past: they had a great sense of smell, and were
agile, smart and social, possibly traveling in herds, which provided some protection against
predators. They were related to Nanshiungosaurus, Segnosaurus, and Erlikosaurus, from
Mongolia and China; and to Nothronychus from North America, all of which looked much like
them.
Therizinosaurus were so heavy that, atypically for their group, they had feet that looked
like the feet of sauropods. We are lucky enough to have nest fossils: groups of mothers excavated
subterranean nests where they laid compact circles of 8 spherical, rough eggs each. When the
young dinosaurs hatched, there were no mothers around, but they were precocial and could look
after themselves as soon as they emerged from the ground:

Fig. 45. Therizinosaurus egg with baby. Source: Wikimedia.

Still, these dinosaurs are mysterious, we only have a few fossils and the information that
we ignore far surpasses what we have been able to extract from the impressions in stone of these
long-gone animals that, 70 million years ago, breathed, thought and lived lives that we can hardly
imagine.

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 2.4. LIZARDS

2.4.1. If Galileo used mathematics to measure Dante’s Hell, why can’t I use ecology to count
biblical lizards?

Abstract: Galileo Galilei was obviously in a humorous mood when he used mathematics
to measure the hell described in the Divine Comedy. The subject was not real, but the calculations
were valid and didactical. King Solomon probably did not exist, but following Galileo, here I
apply ecological principles to the lizards and palace described in biblical texts.

Fig. 46. The Mediterranean House Lizard, Hemidactylus turcicus. Source: Wikipedia.

There are whole books about the animals mentioned in biblical texts, and in many cases,
the identities of those animals cannot be settled. This is worsened by the fact that the texts have
been extensively modified and mistranslated, and that many books have been eliminated from the
collection over the years by different sects. The biblical book of proverbs has traditionally been
attributed to King Solomon, but probably Solomon is just a “wise king” archetype and did not
exist in real life (Millard, 1991; Finkelstein & Silberman, 2006).

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 In any case, whoever wrote “Lizards—they are easy to catch, but they are found even in
kings’ palaces” (Proverbs 30:28, New Living Translation) was aware of the contradiction that
kings, despite their power over life and death, could not get rid of this small house pest, the lizard.
My first question about this text was: Which was the lizard that the biblical writer knew?
Of around 20 species of small lizards currently found in Israel and Palestine, the most
likely species is the Mediterranean house lizard, Hemidactylus turcicus, and the reason is that this
is the only lizard in the region known to live steadily in human buildings.
Of course, we cannot be certain, but assuming I got the species right, we have a good deal
of knowledge about this species. They produce several two-egg clutches from March to August,
sometimes in communal nesting areas. They are most active from March to November. The males
have a high-pitched call, similar to a squeak, with territorial and maybe also courtship functions
(Ibrahim, 2007).

This answers the question of how and when they reproduce, but many more questions can
be asked, and here I will also answer a question inspired by the work of Galileo Galilei.
In 1588, a young Galileo lectured the Florentine Academy about the size of hell as
described in Dante´s Divine Comedy. The subject was not real, but the calculations were valid and
didactical (Angelini, Magnaghi-Delfino, Norando, 2014).
Following Galileo, I wanted to use ecological knowledge to calculate the size of a lizard
population in the fictitious Palace of King Solomon. I hope you find the simple calculation
educational:
If they had the same density that they reach today, 478 lizards per hectare (Locey, & Stone, 2006),
in a 0,099 hectare palace (1 Kings 7:2-3), the population could have reached a stable size around
50 individuals (478 × 0.099 = 47).
I am not saying that Solomon or his palace existed, they are almost certainly fiction
(Millard, 1991; Finkelstein & Silberman, 2006) but this fiction shows the enormous power of
science to predict how things would be if certain conditions existed.
Religious texts can mix anecdotes, popular sayings, short stories, poems, myths, legends
and official documents; they are not scientific sources, but they open a door to the world of their
writers. This particular paragraph connects us to someone who, thousands of years ago, did not
fail to notice that lizards were unwanted house dwellers, and that they were strongly resistant to
pest control.

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 1.5. BIRDS

1.5.1. Parrots of the Eiffel Tower: how some bird species benefit from war
Abstract: Not all was bad news. Some birds benefited from human armed conflict taken place
in the past century. Also, they were used to develop important roles in wars such as
communication of military and mental health of patients.

Fig. 47. Parrots were employed, early in the war, at the Eiffel Tower to announce the approach
of hostile aircraft. Source: modified from Wikimedia Commons and Svgsilh.

War is hell on earth: no other description better fits the absolute horror of war.
Nevertheless, in his book, Birds and the War, Scottish ornithologist Hugh S. Gladstone
(1877-1949) explained that some bird species actually benefit from human armed conflict. In
the sea, gulls swarm over fish killed by explosions, and battlefield debris are used by birds of
many species gulls swarm for shelter. Military buildings also provide shelter, and refuse from
troops and military installations help birds with tons of food and nesting materials (Trouer-
Trend, 2006).

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 Fig. 48. In wars, gulls take advantage of fish that surface after explosions. Source: Pxfuel.

Potassium and nitrates from bombs have lasting ecological effects: they are, after all, key
components of fertilizers, and the enriched soils produce more biomass. More vegetation
means more flowers, fruits and seeds, which in turn mean more insects and more herbivores:
great news for birds that feed on seeds, fruits and small animals, as well as for carrion-eating
birds. Minutes after mortar shells craters were formed, birds landed to feed on the exposed
grub worms, and weeks later, they bathed and fed on the rain-filled craters.
Of course, millions of birds suffer injury and death because of wars, but conflicts also
prevent bird hunters from going to some areas. No-man zones, like the ones between the two
Koreas and those that buffered west and east Europe during the cold war, are significant
refuges for flora and fauna, as are zones that become depopulated when human refugees
abandon them.
In the times of Gladstone, messenger pigeons still were part of army units, and military
hospitals used canaries and pigeons to improve the mental health of patients. Then, as
now, soldiers sometimes kept pet birds and, even in the battlefield, birds provided relief: “If it
weren’t for the birds, what a hell it would be! I watch them singing, and something comes into
my throat”, wrote a Scottish soldier killed in the Western Front2.

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 Fig. 49. Armies used pigeons to send messages that were difficult to intercept. Source:
Wikimedia Commons.
“Ornithologists are also called to arms and die in wars” adds Gladstone, “and this saves
thousands of birds that would, otherwise, be killed to enlarge the collections of both museums
and amateurs”.
“Parrots were employed, early in the war, at the Eiffel Tower to announce the approach of
hostile aircraft. It was found at first that the birds gave warning fully twenty minutes before an
aeroplane or airship could be identified by the eye or heard by the human ear” (Gladstone,
1919).
This extraordinary use of tropical birds in the French capital was discontinued, because
they were equally alarmed by enemy and friendly aircraft.

Fig. 50. Even in wars, there is time for some interaction with nature. Source: Wikimedia
Commons.

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 Today, the United States Armed Forces and other western armies incorporate bird
conservation in their guidelines (Eberly & Keating, 2006) and birds also benefit from sites
of past battles that are now protected as parks, for example Santa Rosa in Costa Rica
(Anónimo, 2019) and Antietam and Manassas in the USA (Higgins, 2017). In a study in the
USA, when military exercises scared away crows, northern cardinals were less stressed
and reproduced better (Barron et al., 2012). I dream of a future in which soldiers can pet
birds instead of killing other human beings; and I hope my grandchildren’s children can live
that dream.

Fig. 51. Santa Rosa, Costa Rica, where the Costa Rican army attacked foreign invaders. It is
an area rich in birds and is now protected by law. Source: Área de Conservación Guanacaste.

Fig. 52. A study in a military base found that northern cardinals were less stressed and
reproduced better when military drills kept the crows away. Source: Donald Wuori/Audubon.

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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Source: Wikipedia

Julián Monge-Nájera (born June 6, 1960 in San José) is a Costa Rican ecologist, scientific
editor, writer, educator and photographer. A researcher at Universidad de Costa Rica,
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and Universidad Estatal a Distancia. His scientific
work has been featured by The New York Times; National Geographic Magazine; the BBC;
Wired; The Independent (London) and The Reader's Digest, among others. He is a member of
the Expert Panel that sets the Environmental Doomsday Clock; Onychophora Curator in the
Encyclopedia of Life; and Team Member of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

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