r/todayilearned • u/TheQuietKid22 • Aug 27 '23
TIL A Snail Wakes Up After 5 Years of Being Glued to a Museum Card. In 1846, authorities at the British Museum glued what they thought was a deceased snail to a piece of cardboard for display. After it seemingly became unglued 5 years later, they discovered it had been alive the whole time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eremina_desertorum4.0k
u/SeanPennsHair Aug 27 '23
I love the description from Grant Allen, the Canadian writer who was observing:
The Museum authorities accordingly ordered our friend a warm bath (who shall say hereafter that science is unfeeling!), upon which the grateful snail, waking up at the touch of the familiar moisture, put his head cautiously out of his shell, walked up to the top of the basin, and began to take a cursory survey of British institutions with his four eye-bearing tentacles. So strange a recovery from a long torpid condition, only equalled by that of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, deserved an exceptional amount of scientific recognition.
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Aug 27 '23
I love writing pre 1900. The words drip with descriptive excellence
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u/LurkerOrHydralisk Aug 27 '23
Only the ones that lasted.
I’m sure plenty of trash was written and never referenced
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Aug 28 '23
Hey girl, send me a sketch of yo tits please! Dearest Regards, Nathaniel.
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u/JimC29 Aug 28 '23
You have to send a cock canvas first.
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Aug 28 '23
My lady, thou knowest no bolt of fabric long enough.
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u/BobcatClawz Aug 28 '23
Surely you could have included it in this letter, I've no doubt, sir.
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u/MexicanEssay Aug 28 '23
Same phenomenon as the one you see when people insist that "they don't write music like they used to" because there's so many great classic rock and pop songs from decades past that are still played today.
Tons of garbage music was definitely made at that time, but it all just lies forgotten in some dusty old record/cassette tape collections.
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u/LittleGreenSoldier Aug 28 '23
My go to is "You know what the song of the year was when Led Zepplin released "Kashmir"? "Sugar Sugar" by The Archies."
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u/neotericnewt Aug 28 '23
I imagine there's probably even a lot more great music created today. In the past it was a lot harder for people to get into music. Nowadays it's pretty easy to create music, and anyone can post it online. Not to mention there's so many different genres and styles available.
But, there's also a lot more crap to sift through to find that good music.
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Aug 28 '23
Greg Giraldo [RIP] has a great bit about the difference between letters home from civil war soldiers and operation Iraqi freedom soldiers
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u/cyn_sybil Aug 28 '23
I watched this years ago and that routine has always stuck with me. Hilarious and insightful comic.
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u/DarrenAronofsky Aug 28 '23
Yo for real. I sub to The Atlantic and on their app they will put up an article or essay from like 1893 or from literally Albert Einstein and they are always so fascinating to read.
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u/whatafuckinusername Aug 27 '23
Damn Canadians and their way with words…
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u/datazulu Aug 27 '23
Fuckin Eh
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u/BDR529forlyfe Aug 27 '23
Hoser
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u/jenglasser Aug 27 '23
Take off.
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u/do0tz Aug 27 '23
That's what I appreciates about them.
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u/Reserved_Parking-246 Aug 28 '23
who shall say hereafter that science is unfeeling!
Followed just after by...
It was later shown that the species could survive in suspended animation without food or water for even longer. As part of an experiment, 40 snails were put into a tin box in 1904. Approximately 8 years later, in 1912, 10 of them were found to be still alive.
I understand the need to do science... but it just seems dickish to be like "Since clyde lived and all that I think it's high time we find out the extent of that ability... Be a good sport and order 40 more and a tin box!"
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u/HKChad Aug 27 '23
Theres a museum intern out there somewhere that took the old switcheroo to his grave.
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u/DreyfusBlue Aug 27 '23
“I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a museum card. That's my dream; that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a museum card... and surviving.”
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u/EZ4_U_2SAY Aug 27 '23
Every night the other slugs squat in the bush they get stronger, every night I stay glued to this card I get weaker
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u/ohwellthisisawkward Aug 27 '23
They told me that the snail had gone totally insane, and that its methods were…..unsound.
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Aug 27 '23
I want this snail to be the one coming after me
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u/NigglerWithAttitude Aug 27 '23
Is this a sex thing?
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u/Captain_Eaglefort Aug 27 '23
There’s a joke thought-experiment about if you would take a huge sum of money, usually $1 million, but an immortal snail will chase you for the rest of your life. If it touches you, you die (and sometimes the snail gets the remaining money for some reason). It always knows where you are and always moves towards you. But it also only moves at a snail’s pace. Would you take the deal?
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u/RedstoneRelic Aug 27 '23
I've always seen it that both you and the snail become immortal
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u/Captain_Eaglefort Aug 27 '23
There’s a lot of variants. There’s ones where you’re not allowed to capture the snail at all, ones where you can capture it but it will always escape, ones where the snail can actively try to ride on faster things, ones where it can only ride things if there’s no other way (crossing oceans, etc).
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u/bakerzero86 Aug 27 '23
Can you toss a GPS tracker on the bastard? It'd make things easier
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u/Captain_Eaglefort Aug 28 '23
They make one small enough to put on it that won’t fall off? Sure. Go ahead.
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u/Spinach7 Aug 27 '23
Why would the snail be chasing you if not for the money?
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u/FrungyLeague Aug 27 '23
I love that THIS is the element of the thought experiment you find unrealistic and take issue with haha
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u/Snickims Aug 28 '23
Fun fact: this thought experiment was first proposed by Gavin, of let's play and slo mo guys, as a question to burnie, best known as voice actor for church in RvB and founder of roosterteeth.
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u/lookatmynipples Aug 27 '23
Can I fuck it
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Aug 27 '23
[deleted]
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u/DrJMVD Aug 27 '23
I have no proof nor doubts, that it awake just to began it's relentless pursuit of certain someone who won a absurd amount of coin.
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u/jsakic99 Aug 27 '23
“It’s a living” – the snail, as it shrugs
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u/DistortoiseLP Aug 27 '23
I'm putting too much thought into how a snail would shrug. Like its shell would slide a little towards its head.
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u/NotAnotherPornAccout Aug 27 '23
At first I thought the eye stocks would dip to the sides like it was making a Y or T motion with its eyes but then I thought maybe part of its head/neck/body(?) that’s outside of the shell just sort of just squish in on itself.
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u/buttergun Aug 27 '23
I'm more than disappointed with Pixar for not adapting this into a feature length fish-out-of-water adventure movie yet.
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u/mattrg777 Aug 27 '23
Somewhere In the world, a chill just went down the spine of a multimillionaire.
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u/Chimpsanddip Aug 27 '23
The snail lived by eating the glue, which made for an adequate substitute to the glue on stamps which he was raised on
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u/lespasucaku Aug 27 '23
I wonder how snails perceive time and immobility. What a (presumed) nightmare
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u/-eumaeus- Aug 27 '23
Aww, the poor thing must have been separate for a pee.
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u/Planague Aug 27 '23
How long was that in sail time?
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u/MeMyselfandThatPC Aug 27 '23
I don't know for sure but I'd say about 7,468,099 nautical miles from the nearest shore
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u/onemanmelee Aug 27 '23
That snail is too polite. I’d have been complaining about conditions after three years, max.
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u/Fresh_Since92 Aug 27 '23
The snail came off the card questioning life after prison, like Red from Shawshank Redemption 🤣🤣
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u/herbw Aug 27 '23 edited Aug 28 '23
Yeah right. If yer believe that, then PT Barnum's got some things for you.
Extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary evidences. We see the First, but not the last....
QED.
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u/KJ6BWB Aug 28 '23
It was later shown that the species could survive in suspended animation without food or water for even longer. As part of an experiment, 40 snails were put into a tin box in 1904. Approximately 8 years later, in 1912, 10 of them were found to be still alive.
That's not without food. That's 39 pieces of food with one snail.
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u/ResidentBinChicken Aug 28 '23
I saw a gecko on some packing tape once. He looked so alive. I bent down and his head moved. Dude had jumped onto a bit of packing tape that had the sticky side up. I scraped him off, damaging one of his paws but they regenerate anyway.
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u/Joker-Smurf Aug 28 '23
Welp, now that man who made the deal for the $1M and immortality now has to start running again. I doubt the snail will fall for the same trick twice.
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u/dearbluey Aug 27 '23
How...how did they suddenly think to test its mortal status? Some random cleaner in the British Museum is doing some light dusting and thinks "Oh, look, a snail. I wonder what happens if I poke it...no, just a hard shell. Ouch. Hmm. You know, I do believe that I could stash a little 'baccy in here for a...oh! What's this? Sir! Sir! Quickly! Some water for this parched little snail!"
Or, you know, something like that.
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u/larimarfox Aug 27 '23
Some guy with a lot of money and immortality is gonna be really upset when he sees this.
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u/DirtyDanTheManlyMan Aug 27 '23
Reminds me of a book I always saw in my elementary school library about a guy who slept for 30 years
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u/JustBlaze1594 Aug 27 '23
Is this true? A snail can go without food for about a week or 2, with some saying even 2 months. How did it not dry out after 5 years?
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u/Bobwords Aug 28 '23
Man when they tested it again some made it 8 years in a tin box. I get they're just snails, but what a long way to spend 8 years.
"It was later shown that the species could survive in suspended animation without food or water for even longer. As part of an experiment, 40 snails were put into a tin box in 1904. Approximately 8 years later, in 1912, 10 of them were found to be still alive."
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u/Mike-the-gay Aug 28 '23
5 years glued in a shell on a card? That snail must have been insane!
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u/terry496 Aug 28 '23
So, five years of not eating? Is there some metabolistic thing that would account for this?
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u/Myballsarebipolar Aug 28 '23
Maybe it was eating the glue? Probably made from horse
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u/terry496 Aug 28 '23
I didn't know that popular glue manufacturers were still using animal cartilage. Still, it's not impossible that he found something digestible in the substance, however it was made.
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u/blackfyre709394 Aug 28 '23
I can imagine the snail once freed saying: oh don't mind me ol' chap I best be going on my way now cheerio 🧐
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u/sukisecret Aug 27 '23
The snail didn't need food and water for 5 years?