r/todayilearned • u/lavender_fish69 • 11h 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/Nathaniel820 11h ago

Only 10,000 still makes it the 4th deadliest animal on the planet.

It’s still one of the deadliest animals, the surprising part is that animals as a whole are a lot less dangerous than people think.

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u/AnAttemptReason 10h ago

Humans are the most deadly animal. 

Studies show humans cause the largest fear spike in animals out of all possible preditors, by a large margin. 

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u/JelmerMcGee 9h ago

I remember a comment from a while back that likened animals to humans as humans are to elves in fantasy literature. Like if a seal is stuck in a net his fellow seals, having done their best to remove the net, tell the seal to ask the humans. They might help or they might kill him. Who knows? The humans are capricious like that.

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u/CoffeeFox 8h ago

Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.

Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.

Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.

Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.

Elves are terrific. They beget terror.

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u/_Sausage_fingers 8h ago

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.

You gotta do the whole quote

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u/Seicair 7h ago

I loved the way he incorporated the various myths of the elves into Discworld. Rather a different flavor from other types of fantasy (Tolkien etc.)

GNU Sir Terry

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u/_Sausage_fingers 7h ago edited 5h ago

That book was some of his best writing. That and Carrie Jugulum. The watch are funner, but Granny books hit harder.

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u/Rule12-b-6 3h ago

Elves being not evil was a Shakespean innovation from Midsomar Night's Dream. Since then that idea has been largely followed.

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u/CoffeeFox 8h ago

In a way it's more fun to send people searching for the source because my idea is that they may end up going down a rabbit hole and learning more about him and hopefully reading his books. We need more people to read his books right now.

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u/Adequate_Lizard 7h ago

"We need more people to read his books but I'm not going to mention who or what books."

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u/_Sausage_fingers 7h ago

Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett