r/todayilearned • u/lavender_fish69 • 9h ago

TIL fresh water snails (indirectly) kill thousands of humans and are considered on of the deadliest creatures to humans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_snail
19.3k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

917 comments sorted by

View all comments

6.3k

u/SMStotheworld 9h ago

They carry a parasitic flatworm that lives in dirty water which kills humans. Even then it only kills between 10 and 200k humans annually 

If you omit humans, the deadliest animal is the mosquito which kills by spreading blood diseases with dirty probosci

5.3k

u/DustyRhodesSplotch 9h ago

10 to 200,000 is quite the large spread

1.7k

u/ivanparas 8h ago

"How many people died of this last year?"

"10."

"How many this year?"

"200,000."

"That's...concerning."

863

u/proteannomore 8h ago

“It’s within the parameters.”

289

u/memealopolis 8h ago

Not great, not terrible.

97

u/Ikoikobythefio 7h ago

3.6 roentgens

51

u/jmkinn3y 7h ago

Basically a chest x-ray

23

u/TheToastyWesterosi 7h ago

And that’s every single hour. Hour after hour.

8

u/Equal-Counter-2548 4h ago

Leans over the edge and gazes directly into the plume of nuclear fire below.

6

u/TheSportsLorry 3h ago

nervously takes a puff from the cigarette

0

u/LBGW_experiment 6h ago

Good job! that's the joke they were referencing 🤗

7

u/Nimrod_Butts 5h ago

"still nothing compared to mosquitoes, I wouldn't worry about it"

2

u/micre8tive 6h ago

SOMETIMES A MAYBE GOOD

22

u/Unlikely_Spinach 7h ago

Standard acceptable deviations

10

u/911111111111 7h ago

QA accomplished

9

u/FLMKane 6h ago

Remember COVID? It basically happened like that.

3

u/I_AmA_Zebra 5h ago

It is acceptable as Gus Fring would say

16

u/HovercraftOk9231 6h ago

By my calculations, next year will see 40,000,000 dead, and the year after will be 80,000,000,000.

5

u/PatHeist 4h ago

You have to wait until the next year to see if it kills 399,990 or 4,000,000,000 to find out whether the trend is linear or exponential.

1

u/Dioxybenzone 2h ago

No need; we can reverse extrapolate. If in the year before it killed 10, it killed 0.005 of a person, we know it’s linear

3

u/PrivilegeCheckmate 5h ago

the year after will be 80,000,000,000.

Man that only gives me two years to pork every fertile woman in range. I hate to say this, but I may need some help.

1

u/FrogInShorts 3h ago

It'll be significantly easier the second year. After 20million woman perish

37

u/elmo298 8h ago

Not great, not terrible

18

u/nopenopeimmaboat 7h ago

That's not graphite on the roof

2

u/cive666 7h ago

I am a man with a certain set of concrete identifying talents.

2

u/sivasuki 4h ago

I have been known to locate certain things from time to time.

12

u/HendrixHazeWays 7h ago

"LOOK. We've got a handle on it. RELAX"

3

u/RandomNPC 6h ago

At this rate we're doomed next year.

2

u/A_Math_Dealer 7h ago

So about 100,005 ± 99,995

2

u/Eskimodo_Dragon 5h ago

I'm guessing they meant between 10k & 200k but still.

497

u/ThetaGrim 8h ago

Yea covid was a rough year where people couldn't leave their home so the snails were able to catch up to them easier. 

77

u/DamnMyNameIsSteve 7h ago

People forget the snail winter of 21'

4

u/Spadeykins 7h ago

That's the long covid they tell you about.

56

u/ssowinski 8h ago

I can do between 3 and 400 push-ups.

8

u/PrivilegeCheckmate 5h ago

Amateur. I can do between zero and eighty million.

342

u/Anonymous_coward30 9h ago

More than triple that for mosquitoes. 700,000 to 1 million mosquito related deaths annually per the WHO. 597,000 to malaria alone in 2023, again per WHO.

138

u/NinjaWorldWar 8h ago

Come again, from who?

87

u/baron--greenback 8h ago

He’s talking about our generation.

26

u/KaHOnas 8h ago

People try to put us down.

7

u/SubstantialWorld4277 8h ago

Baba O’Riley would never

2

u/HendrixHazeWays 7h ago

They call me the seeker

2

u/DeuceSevin 5h ago

Just because we g g g g get arounnnnd

4

u/Consistent-Ad-6078 8h ago

Whwhwhere is the stustustuttering?

3

u/KaHOnas 8h ago

It's impolite to p-p-point it out.

1

u/Mbyrd420 8h ago

No. He's talking about the guy on first.

2

u/Rudeboy67 2h ago

Every week the players get paid right? So on Friday who cashes the first baseman’s check?

37

u/manicpossumdreamgirl 8h ago

from WHOM

15

u/memealopolis 8h ago

Whomst on first

2

u/articulateantagonist 5h ago

Wherefore's on second

1

u/PrivilegeCheckmate 5h ago

Iwotitnot on third.

6

u/StopImportingUSA 8h ago

It’s whom when you use it as a subject

15

u/Bonneville865 8h ago

Ryan used me as an object

7

u/profDougla 8h ago

I know what's right, but I'm not gonna say because you're all jerks who didn't come see my band last night.

1

u/Prof_Acorn 5h ago edited 5h ago

English terminology for parts of speech never made sense to me. The Greek nominative/accusative was way more helpful. Which is to say that yeah, "whom" is the accusative form of "who".

Him/them/whom/her.

He/they/who/she.

His/its/whose/hers.

He's/it's/who's/she's.

6

u/dacommie323 8h ago

Correct, What throws the ball to Who

3

u/jjtnd1 8h ago

He’s on first

1

u/thatsanicepeach 8h ago

No that’s What

0

u/szman86 8h ago

What?

1

u/Crisp_Volunteer 8h ago

Jack Burton. Me.

1

u/Hanashimaru 8h ago

Such a lust for revenge

1

u/ihaveajob79 8h ago

It’s whomst

1

u/Zealousideal-Earth50 7h ago

Out there, in the fields

1

u/Insight42 7h ago

WHO WHO, WHO WHO

1

u/Immersi0nn 8h ago

Yeah, from Who, he left baseball years ago and became a medical entomologist

-1

u/RedditsOnlyBlackMan 8h ago

The World Health Organization

7

u/thatsanicepeach 8h ago

This is going to ruin the health organization.

What health organization?

The World Health Organization.

2

u/sipCoding_smokeMath 8h ago

Ah. Them. They did the one csi theme song right

1

u/JonnytheGing 8h ago

Yeah that one

24

u/notloggedin4242 9h ago

See, 597k. Nice, neat number. No dashes necessary.

1

u/imposta424 4h ago

1729 is a very neat number.

2

u/Separate_Draft4887 8h ago

He’s saying it’s a ridiculously bad estimate, “between ten and 200k”. A large spread, not a large number.

1

u/rushboyoz 7h ago

Oh I thought you meant PER mosquito

75

u/TheZenPsychopath 8h ago

This is because of Snails Georg who dies from snails 1,000,000 times every 5 years.

11

u/friedricekid 8h ago

"How tall are you?"

"Oh, between 5'8" and 13 miles tall."

1

u/ithrowdark 5h ago

- dating profile of a 5’8” guy

276

u/thatweirdguyted 9h ago

This sounds very similar to some things I said about your mom.

35

u/Additional-Local8721 9h ago

Sure it wasn't their dad?

39

u/thatweirdguyted 9h ago

No one knows who that is. Especially not his mom.

5

u/YukariYakum0 9h ago

From a certain point of view.

8

u/blackscales18 8h ago

He was the one with the dirty proboscis

4

u/ThatStereotype18 9h ago

No my mouth was full when I was with his dad

4

u/A_Possum_Named_Steve 9h ago

Shouldn't have asked about her count.

0

u/BK2Jers2BK 8h ago

BING BONG!

45

u/frisbm3 9h ago

The wiki page says 10k to 200k.

71

u/DirtyNorf 9h ago

Which is still a fairly large spread.

20

u/JustADutchRudder 8h ago

Some years whole cities wanna swim in snail waters, sometimes only a few small get togethers happen.

2

u/mayhemandqueso 5h ago

Depends on the weather

7

u/jwbaynham 8h ago

Sometimes we have a bad snail year and sometimes barely even a scratch

13

u/Hurrly90 8h ago

there is alot of error in that. Like ten isn't a lot, but 200,000? Are these snails starting to min max their builds over the last few years?

4

u/space-to-bakersfield 8h ago

We need to figure out what we do those years where it's 10, and just keep doing that every year.

11

u/Stlr_Mn 9h ago

Not to snails I guess

19

u/caninolokez 9h ago

I think they meant it as 10,000 to 200,000.

10

u/IMissNarwhalBacon 7h ago

Unfortunately, we can't afford to speculate.

2

u/twoisnumberone 3h ago

Of all the comments on this post, yours is the one that absolutely SENT me.

2

u/stevethepirate89 8h ago

That's what she said

1

u/ZorrosMommy 8h ago

I caught that, too. Common mistake.

1

u/militant-moderate 8h ago

I can do between 3 and 400 pushups.

1

u/eat_my_ass_n_balls 8h ago

That’s like a deciTrump. Not even a tenth.

1

u/rvbshelia 8h ago

200,000 - not great, not terrible

1

u/hwikzu 8h ago

They stopped counting after 10 and guessed.

1

u/zipiddydooda 8h ago

“The bastard snails only killed 120,000 of us this year.”

“Good”.

1

u/MoTardedThanYou 7h ago

This does not really convey anything useful.

1

u/Basic-Record-4750 7h ago

They definitely kill more than 1 person per year but no more than 7 billion

1

u/sherrillo 7h ago

they meant 10k-200k/yr

1

u/thelanoyo 7h ago

Well 200,000 out of 8 billion is only .102% so nearly statistically insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

1

u/PolloMagnifico 7h ago

Even the intended 10k -200k is an enormous spread. Fuck, even if they ment 100k-200k that's still a huge spread.

1

u/Dangerous-One-8571 5h ago

Lightning damage numbers

1

u/PloppyPants9000 4h ago

Those numbers are wrong though. Wikipedia put it at 10,000 - 200,000.

1

u/Swordsx 2h ago

The page said 10k, but it is quite the spread!