Slug or snail?

People tend to call something a slug if it looks like a snail but has no shell. However, many distantly related critters among the gastropods — the group that contains snails and slugs — have independently evolved a sluggy,

shell-free shape. So there’s no single, evolutionarily distinct slug lineage. To make things more complicated, a lot of slugs secretly do have shells — they’re just hidden within the slugs’ bodies.

And then there are the in-betweeners.

So-called semi-slugs have tiny shells on the outside of their bodies that are way too small for them to retract into. (Honestly, they look pretty ridiculous.)

The world’s smallest land snail

The recently discovered Angustopila dominikae may be the smallest land snail ever found, with a shell just 0.03 inches.

Some aquatic snails have lungs

Some freshwater snails do not breathe underwater through gills, but rely on a type of lung, floating to the surface each time they need to breathe. Some snails have both gills and a lung. The apple snail has a siphon, a breathing tube that it can stretch up to the water’s surface to breathe without exposing itself to predators.

A snail can take down a starfish

The giant triton, Charonia tritonis, can grow up to a foot and a half long. It’s also an aggressive predator with a keen sense of smell, and it loves to eat starfish, paralysing them with venomous saliva.

‘Notorious B.I.G.’s’ plastic crown sets Guinness record

Guinness World Records has announced the sale of a plastic crown worn by rapper The Notorious B.I.G. during an iconic photo shoot, set a new world record when it sold for $594,750 at auction.

The rapper, born Christopher Wallace and also known as Biggie Smalls, wore the plastic crown in 1997 during a ‘King of New York’ photo shoot for Rap Pages magazine.

A photo, taken by Barron Claiborne during the shoot, is one of the most famous images of the performer.

Guinness said the plastic crown, signed by the rapper and the photographer, set a record for the most expensive fancy-dress/costume crown sold at auction.

The Notorious B.I.G. was born in 1972 and died at age 24 in 1997.

Published in Dawn, Young World, November 7th, 2020