Toothed monsters, or How many teeth do snail?

The majority is sure, than the animal "tooths", the more dangerous it is. The shark in the mouth has several thousand (three to fifteen depending on the species) of razor-sharp teeth located in several rows. That's why shark and bloodthirsty people are considered sharks, but in no case is this sluggish and harmless snail, because not everyone knows how many teeth a snail has, photos and pictures of which are found in many children's books.

There is no more terrible snail of the beast

It turns out that the snail is much sharper than the shark. Most of the teeth of a grape snail. Her mouth already has as many as 25 thousand teeth, with which it can easily grind even very stiff stems and leaves.

It is worth noting that these are not exactly those teeth that we usually mean. In the oral cavity of the cochlea there are so-called radulas - a special apparatus, more like a grater. Here, rather, it is important not how much the snail has teeth, but how they work. Located on the surface of the odontophora (a kind of "tongue"), the radula serves not for biting, but for scraping and chopping food. It consists of a chitinous basal plate (radular membrane) and chitinous teeth located across several hundred rows. All this apparatus operates on the principle of a dredger, which has as many buckets as a snail of teeth. It is these horny formations that scrape off the nutrient that then enters the digestive tract. Some kinds of gastropods are used as a drill, with the help of which a snail opens the shell of its victim.

Some interesting facts from the life of snails

• The nervous system of the cochlea contains about twenty thousand neurons. The human brain, for comparison, consists of several hundred billion.
• Olfactory receptors located at the person inside the nose, in snails are located on top of the horns. In other words, the horns are the nose inside out.
• It is believed that the snails do not see in the literal sense of the word, but only distinguish light and darkness.
• How many teeth a snail has depends on the variety. Usually their number ranges from 15 to 25 thousand.
• Most of the snails are hermaphrodites.
• Giant snail Akhatin fulik reaches a length of 20 cm, but moves slower than a grape snail.
• The meat of this mollusc contains more protein than a chicken egg. In addition, it is rich in calcium, iron and fatty acids. For this reason, they are used for food.
• Regardless of how many teeth a snail has, it has one leg, and therefore it moves very slowly. The maximum speed that the animal develops is about 7 cm / min.
• The most giant of the snails ever found weighed sixteen kilograms, and her house was seventy centimeters long.
• Most snails have a shell twisted clockwise (to the right), if viewed from a swirling end. Twisting counter-clockwise is much less common.
• Snails were used as a medicine in the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases and ocular inflammation, as well as for stopping bleeding.

At the end of the narrative of how much the cochlea has teeth, it should be noted that she is not a record holder for "tooth" in the animal kingdom. The absolute champion is the bare slug. He has about thirty thousand teeth.