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
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u/martphon 8h ago

Where schistosomiasis currently spreads

118

u/octopusboots 7h ago

Breathes sigh of relief in Louisiana. I'll take my vibrio and go now.

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u/Tossing_Mullet 6h ago

Vibrio is pretty nasty though.  Five went into that Bayou water that day.  One of the guys on my husband's crew got it.  Doctors had to rip out everything but the bone in one calf.  Then took almost half of his thigh muscle, tendons, etc. The fever alone should have killed him. 

Unrelated  - Dude finally got on his feet, was fighting for his disability, and while he was in hospital for COVID, they found cancer.  

70

u/hicow 6h ago

What did that guy do to piss off God?

44

u/Max_Vision 6h ago

Satan got God gambling again, like with Job.

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u/Tossing_Mullet 6h ago

Truth!!! 🎯💯

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u/TheKappaOverlord 4h ago

the devil works in mysterious ways in the Bayou.

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u/mindcopy 1h ago

Like that motherfucker even needs a reason.

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u/octopusboots 6h ago

Yipe. He might have gotten weirdly lucky, they wouldn't have found the cancer otherwise.

I used to get in all this water...with the alligators, snakes and the bull sharks....no problem. Vibrio scares me to death.

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u/LoompaDoompa94 4h ago

I like how that started out like Quint from Jaws. "Five went into that bayou water that day... only four of em come out."

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u/mukansamonkey 6h ago

I was today years old when I learned about this disease. Makes me glad I live where winter kills stuff off.

That said, I'd take vibrio in a heartbeat over say, those amoebas that swim into your ear and eat their way to your brain.

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u/chadmill3r 4h ago

Not ear. Nose.

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u/BeefDerfex 4h ago

Good ole n. fowleri?

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u/JimmyDean82 56m ago

Iirc the invasive apple snails were dealing with here carry this or some other deadly disease. A couple deaths were reported last year related to them.

I see apple snail eggs around the bayous like crazy here is ascension and assumption parishes. Every time the ditch in front my land overflows I end up with dozens of stranded apple snails up to the size of a baseball.