Snail - Notice the large green, pulsating tentacles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOccasionally an Amber Snail will have giant extended eye stalks that seem to have green, moving lateral stripes.\u00a0 As you may have guessed this is a result of our friendly little Green-Banded Broodsac parasites.\u00a0 The journey of this parasite begins as eggs in the droppings of birds (again, assuming the journey starts with the eggs).\u00a0 The clueless snail thinks he has just struck gold and begins to feed on the bird droppings.\u00a0 Naturally, the parasite then begins to hatch inside of the snail and infects their main digestive gland.\u00a0 While in this gland the parasite will change into something called cercaries and will begin to produce sporocytes which are simply long tubes composed of hundreds of these cercaries. These sporocytes will extend into the snails tentacles and will begin to pulsate.\u00a0 So why do these parasites go through all of this trouble?\u00a0 Generally in nature bright green, pulsating movement is not necessarily the best camouflage.\u00a0 That’s right my friends this parasite is actually trying to attract the attention of a bird.\u00a0 As they should the bird will see this snail sticking out like a sore thumb and swoop down to eat.\u00a0 It sort of reminds me of an alien calling for their mother ship. \u00a0 Once the parasite is in the birds digestive tract they will change from cercaries to adults, lay eggs and the whole process starts over again.\u00a0 I still find it absolutely incredible how manipulative parasites can be.<\/p>\n
I hope you enjoyed our unique theme of Wild Facts.\u00a0 We will be back to normal broadcasting tomorrow.\u00a0 Have a great day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You may be relieved to learn that today is the last of our Parasitic Wild Facts.\u00a0 I know you will be disappointed to see an end of these weird little worms and crustaceans that mess with their hosts.\u00a0 Today’s parasite is just as interesting and unique as the rest.\u00a0 We are going to learn about the Green-Banded Broodsac which, much like the Liver Fluke we learned about last week, likes to use snails as their intermediate host or middle-man if you will.\u00a0 Everyone seems to be out to get those poor little snails.\u00a0 They are going to develop a complex. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4024,276],"tags":[348,1058,1056,1057,4025,275,1047],"yoast_head":"\n
Facts about the Green-Banded Broodsac<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how this parasite inflicts unsuspecting snails and then attracts birds to eat them.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2010\/wild-fact-748-law-of-attraction-green-banded-broodsac\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Facts about the Green-Banded Broodsac\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learn how this parasite inflicts unsuspecting snails and then attracts birds to eat them.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2010\/wild-fact-748-law-of-attraction-green-banded-broodsac\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Animal Facts For Kids | Wild Facts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-11T07:00:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-01-16T01:07:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/mm880-bernsteinschnecke-succinea-putris-parasit-saugwurm-leucochloridium-paradoxum.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"347\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"520\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nathan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nathan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2010\/wild-fact-748-law-of-attraction-green-banded-broodsac\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2010\/wild-fact-748-law-of-attraction-green-banded-broodsac\/\",\"name\":\"Facts about the Green-Banded Broodsac\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-08-11T07:00:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-01-16T01:07:22+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5129f3f0129e9989a2b850bb2f3cc4\"},\"description\":\"Learn how this parasite inflicts unsuspecting snails and then attracts birds to eat them.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/2010\/wild-fact-748-law-of-attraction-green-banded-broodsac\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/\",\"name\":\"Animal Facts For Kids | Wild Facts\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5129f3f0129e9989a2b850bb2f3cc4\",\"name\":\"Nathan\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.wild-facts.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/0.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0e126172d6ffd6e322bd2cea79f2ad95?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/0.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0e126172d6ffd6e322bd2cea79f2ad95?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nathan\"},\"description\":\"I am a digital nomad who enjoys travelling around the globe while inspiring others to leave their comfort zone and improve their life. 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