How killer cone snails kill

here's a question for you what type of chemist kills you doesn't cure you here's a clue it moves around on a giant sticky foot it employs chemical warfare it eats things as big as itself it paralyzes is praying seconds it has eyes on stalks it carries a tome on its back and it launches attacks with harpoons meet the cones now the world's most venomous snail found right throughout the coral reef regions of the world and let's be honest they're a slow-moving snail and I don't look like they're all that venomous but looks can be deceiving there's a saying that we use around here if it's a cone leave it alone and that's something you should really listen to so what's so dangerous about these slow-moving snails they've got an oral siphon which they use for sleeping out their prey and they final age have two different ways of feeding one group actually has this big oral hood so they find a sleeping fish envelop it in this hood and then basically use this harpoon like toothed jab the fish and inject it with venom and immobilize it within seconds the second group also feeds on sleeping fish but these guys have a proboscis that comes out of the mouth out through the sand nails the fish again with this harpoon like tooth injects it with venom causes paralysis within one or two seconds and then they hauled in like a fishing line down their throat into their stomach and eat the whole thing in one complete mouthful so not only do cone snails feed in different ways but they can produce different types of venom so think of them as mobile chemical factories they can produce a venom for catching their prey like fish or they can produce a venom for defense against predators and those Venom's are completely different what's really cool about it is they do it in a really unique way think of it as a venom gland with a really long venom duct or a hose connected to this harpoon like to the venom gland is a bag of Lego what happens is they take pieces of that Lego and they construct different types of venom down along that duct and squirt it out the other end so if they want a venom to kill a fish that construct it down that duck if they want to venom to protect themselves against the predator like us they produce a different venom all this from a slow-moving snail so why study current snails well science has already found one component from the venom of these guys that's more potent than morphine now when you know that cone snails have over 500 different components to their venom and there are 500 different species that means there are 250 thousand different components any of those components could be useful to humans the potential is huge that's the nature of science

Channel: The Nature of Science

Views: 3,907,603

Rating: 4.8455458 out of 5

Keywords: cone snail, shell, Conus (Organism Classification), venom, venomous, deadly, nature, chemistry, Medicine (Field Of Study)

Id: 4wihKnARrAw

Length: 3min 47sec (227 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/scrabs92]

You guys remember that askreddit thread? This is that snail.

[u/danc4498]

Another way to die in Australia!

[u/goal2004]

His 250,000 components math doesn't make much sense. I expect more than some of these components to be identical between some species.

[u/Epic2112]

WHY IS HE STICKING HIS HAND IN THERE??!!

It made me uncomfortable just watching it.

[u/moreawkwardthenyou]

It looks like it eats with a foreskin. That's neat.

Disclaimer: Do not attempt at home

[u/FatTortoise]

I saw these guys on an episode of the Octonauts. Groovy.

[u/bobohead1988]

Describes it as the worlds most venomous snail

Proceed to make it squirt venom via bare hands at 2:33

[u/hefnetefne]

"What chemist kills you, doesn't kill you?"

What?

[u/hscook24]

This is definitely the soundtrack from that bike race app.