Snails Take Wing

That's a pretty cool skill!:

Experts on the remote island of Hahajima, 620miles south of Tokyo, made the discovery after studying the dietary habits of the white-eyed Mejiro bird, which feasts on a tiny species of land snail known as Tornatellides Boeningi.

They carried out the research by feeding the snails to the birds under laboratory conditions - and discovered that around 15 per cent of those consumed survived, emerging intact in the birds' droppings.

...The research has also suggested that snails use the birds to spread their populations over a wider area, in the same way that plant seeds are dispersed by fruit-eating birds.

One of the snails which survived the process gave a further indication of this by giving birth shortly after emerging from the bird's gut.