A research group consisting of teachers from Kyoto University's graduate school and Sapporo Keisei High School in Hokkaido, and six students from the same school's science department found that Ezo snails increased their walking speed by 6 to 1.2 times in response to external stimuli that imitated their natural enemies. He announced that he would do so. This appears to be the first report of the animal ``running away''.
The Ezo snail, a land snail that is almost endemic to Hokkaido, is known for its unusual behavior of swinging its shell to repel its natural enemies, carabid beetles.This time, we conducted an experiment focusing on the locomotive ability, exploratory ability, and activity of two closely related species, the Ezo snail and the Snail snail.
As a result, when exposed to an external stimulus that simulated an attack from a natural enemy, the snails increased their movement speed by 1.2 to 1.3 times.The speed increases from an average of about 1.05 mm/s to 1.27-1.35 mm/s.As a result, when attacked by a predator, the Ezo snail exhibited the unusual behavior of ``running away'' at the same time as waving its shell around.
It was also discovered that the snail snail is ``circadian'', meaning it is active both day and night.Snails are generally considered to be nocturnal, and there are no known species that are always active.On the other hand, the common snail snail retreats into its shell in response to external stimuli, and its diurnal behavior is normal, being active only at night.Even among closely related species, extreme differences in several behavioral traits were shown.
The results of this study show that there are clear interspecies differences in anti-predator behavior, exploratory behavior, and activity, and a clear correlation between personalities, and the existence of a behavioral syndrome* that spans the species of Ezo spp. It is said to be suggesting that
*A phenomenon in which the personalities of animals across multiple categories are correlated.
Paper information:【Behaviour】The divergence of mobility and activity associated with anti-predator adaptations in land snails
