Snails Cross Vast Oceans

They hitch a ride on a whale’s tail of course.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snail_and_the_Whale

(Of course I’m just kidding but it’s a great book)

I can't help but think this is partially inspired by the "Get 10MM but you have to avoid the snail for the rest of your life" meme [1]. The common answer is always to spend a year in the US and a year in East Asia so the Snail is always stuck trying to cross the pacific.

So it's nice to know fears were founded and snails can in fact cross the ocean.

1. https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2021/11/03/for-love-of-the-imm...

It is not unusual for an entire tree to end up floating in the ocean.

Some of the branches will end up dry above the water, and in a big tree might take months for the leaves to die.

Those branches can be a home for all kinds of creatures.

Across the whole world, and millions of years, almost every small creature will get to every continent this way.

The reason many creatures haven't yet spread like this is that many creatures have a minimum viable population in the tens or hundreds of individuals.

Is a nice experiment but 14 days at sea is to low. They should be able to survive for much more time than this.

Tropical and Mediterranean Snails evolved to endure a dry season and in the same conditions of lack of water and scorching sun will look for a high ground exposed to cooling winds, hide under an emerged branch with a lot of colleagues, produce an epiphragm to seal themselves to the branch and then aestivate for several months. For snails crossing the sea is "space travel" level, and would attack the problem in the same way as human astronauts. The best strategy is entering in an hibernation phase and sleep the entire voyage. As they travel in groups would mate soon after reaching a new land.

Domain name checks out

“Biogeographically, snails are plants”

I love this

beating rabbits again