Snailsare hardly the dull animal they ’re often made out to be . They may be slow , but there are species of escargot that can boom inharsh environs , paralyse their quarry , and have sex by harpoon their spouse withlove darts . If all that is n’t enough to impress you , take a peep inside a snail ’s mouth if you ever get the opportunity : You ’ll find rows and rows of sharp chompers , make up thousands of snail teeth all together , according to NPR .
snail are packing dozens of rows of pearly whites , with a exclusive snail boasting anywhere between 2000 and 15,000 teeth between its jaws . Up near , the inside of a snail ’s mouth await like it ’s lined with Velcro . The escargot tooth abstract in , make it easy for the animal to latch onto its repast and slide it down its gullet .
The vapourous number of dentition it has is n’t the only matter that makes a escargot ’s smiling terrifying . The mollusk wheel through tooth like a shark does , with fresh rows growing in the back of the back talk and gradually move forwards to bump out the worn tooth up front . Together these rows make something called a radula , a glossa - similar pad the escargot uses to snag food for thought by extending it out of its mouth , xenomorph - style .
Of all snail varieties , limpet — a small eccentric of ocean snail — may be the most dentally gifted : Their teeth are made from protein reinforce by fine mineral nanofibers call goethite , and according to one subject , they ’re even stronger than spider silk , potentially making them thetoughest biologic materialon Earth .
One source of comfort here is that escargot tooth are also tiny : A single limpet tooth is slimmer than a human tomentum . That means a barbarous snail on the loose likely ca n’t do you much trauma — unless maybe you ’re a part of Gunter Wilhelm Grass .
Now that you love all about snail teeth , endeavor to get over down the slug and snail inthis brainteaser .
A reading of this fib ran in 2018 ; it has been updated for 2023 .
