The Fushou snail is shouting and fighting in Taiwan, but guarding rice in Japan? Since there was no uprising in native Argentina, why did it become a "premature snail" in Taiwan?

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The Fushou snail, which is beaten by people in Taiwan, is revered as "Rice Shoubei" in Japan. In the native Argentina, not only does no one think that the snail is harmful, but it is also used by ecological commentators as a representative species to understand the changes of the landscape.

The friendly small peasant community in Ilan keeps company with snails every day. From the "kill to kill" mentality, they gradually find that they simply do not know enough about this closest enemy, so in August this year, they embarked on a journey to find their roots and went to Argentina on the other side of the world. They also went to Japan and the Philippines, which also have the problem of snails, hoping to find a feasible way from "human snail to human snail symbiosis."

Ana, an Argentine scholar, shows that the snail collection (Photo / O'Christ ver Lin) is so obsessed that Fushou snail unites the small farmers in Ilan.

"because of the common obsession with Fushou snail, pick up snail pick up from hate to love, love and hate intertwined. It is also the Fushou snail, which unifies the loose Ilan small farmers! " Cai Yanlin, associate professor of humanities and social sciences at Jiaotong University and a member of Tulak Experimental Farm Home, said with a smile.

She was one of the members of the Fushou snail's trip to Argentina, along with Lin Fangyi, a doctor of zoology who initiated the "Science Project in the farmland", and Lin Xinqi, president of the creator Tian Wenshe (nicknamed ö ver), who re-viewed "our distance from the snail" from the perspective of anthropologists, biologists, artists and farmers, respectively.

"Fushou snails are bad in everyone's impression, and if the seedlings are planted, they will disappear in a day or two," even as the whole piece of UFO was sucked away. "so at the beginning, we also held the attitude of eliminating evil." Tsai Yan-Lin explains that the conventional farming method uses molluscicides against snails, while the organic farming method uses bitter tea meal, but both methods will kill many aquatic creatures, and many small farmers would rather pick up snails with their bare hands.

So people developed revolutionary emotions because of snail picking. some people designed snail traps, and some invented "snail traps" (fishing nets similar to cooking and cutting noodles plus telescopic curtain rods). ⋯⋯heard that the snails were most active from 9: 00 p.m. to 3: 00 p.m., and the small farmers wore headlamps to cover the stars and the moon, picking up snails in the dark in the fields.

Self-made snail traps (upstream and downstream data photos) look for snails to take pictures and view the fields from the perspective of multiple species

But how much do we know about Fushou snail? Many Nonglian field snails and Fushu snails are difficult to distinguish. Tsai Yan-Lin, as an anthropologist, thought further: is it possible to break away from the human perspective and understand Fushou snail and this land from the perspective of paddy field creatures in the way of "multi-species ethnography"?

So for the first time, Fushou snail carried a miniature camera on his back.

"We found a very large Fushou snail and helped it gain weight," says Tsai Yan-Lin, because in order to comply with the spirit of humanity, the biological load should not exceed 1/10 of his body weight. it was not easy to stick to the camera and put it back in the field, but the photographer himself stood in place and launched a "non-cooperative campaign."

At this time, a large African snail passed by leisurely, and everyone immediately turned their minds to it, because it would also go down to the field and overlap with the living environment of the snail. Fortunately, the snail lived up to expectations, picked up a waterproof miniature camera and walked as usual, making an eye-opening and dreamy Tanaka film for the team. (for works, please see "Fushou Luohu (Golden Snail Opera)")

Hire the big African snail as a photographer instead (Photo courtesy of Cai Yanlin)

Other animals active in the paddy field were also favored, but the Muscovy Duck protested vehemently against throwing the camera away, and Huafu, the dog, took the task, filming what he saw walking and jumping on the ridge of the field, and recording the screams when he fell when he jumped from the ridge of soil to the narrow ridge of cement, confirming the impact of the ridge of cement on biology.

Cai Yanlin also took close shots of the moment when the eggs of Fushou snail hatched one by one, as well as the time-shortened photography of rice flowering. In her paper, she wrote that from the perspective of multi-species ethnography, the "human" is restored to the "original" position, which is one of the links in a network of physical ties and intertwined life and death.

In Argentina, no one cares about Fushou snail, snail scholars like to meet.

Taiwan regards Fushou snail as the number one public enemy, and even people who are not farmers will be disgusted by the sight of pink eggs. So what is the relationship between the snail and human beings and the entire ecological environment in ── Argentina, the hometown of the snail?

"the local people simply don't realize that Fushu snails are harmful, so they are native species that take it for granted," says woody ver, who is often inspired by Fushu snails. When local farmers saw many holes made by Fushu snails in the fields, they thought they were caused by thunder, while the people had no idea that snail eggs were frog eggs.

Originally thought that Fushou snail must live comfortably in his hometown, but as a result, "there is no imagined happy." Ver explains that the rice fields there adopt the method of "dry direct seeding". After sowing, the seedlings grow up and then release water. At this time, the snail can no longer be gnawed.

The appearance of Argentina's longevity snail seems to have gone through the vicissitudes of life (Photo / O'Brit ver Lin)

There is also the threat of natural predators. "there are two kinds of birds that feed on Fushu snails, the snail eagle and the rice crane, so we really can't do without Fushu snails there, otherwise these species will be affected," says ver.

The most interesting thing is that Argentine scholars are eager to see visitors from afar, not only taking out the collection of snails in bottles and cans, but also enthusiastically taking them everywhere to find snails. The Taiwan regiment also returned the innovative Fushou snail-shaped chocolate gift boxes, as well as snail egg stickers and other peripheral design boutique.

For example, the fake Fushou snail chocolate combination (Photography / Cai Jiashan) is innocent. If you want to do friendly agriculture, you must first know it.

"Fushou snail reflects our thinking about agriculture, and the more mainstream idea is that as long as there are creatures in the field, it's best not to know them all, and we don't want to know them all." Lin Fang-Yi, a biologist, found that in the past, Taiwan's research on Oncomelania hupensis focused on how to control it, but did not really understand this creature.

Lin Fangyi and Mr. Chen Yihan cut from an ecological point of view to study snail traps and explore which kind of bait is the most effective. In the past, farmers would throw away vegetable weeds in the fields to trap longevity snails, but their experiments found that rice bran had the best effect. Each trap "can catch one or two hundred snares in one night, so you can bend down 200 times less."

She is also curious about how other countries fight against the snail. According to the literature, when Fushou snail came to Asia in the 1970s, its first stop was Taiwan, and then it spread to Japan, the Philippines, China, South Korea, Thailand and other places.

As a result, the Fushou snail delegation also went to Japan and the Philippines and made an unexpected discovery. Some farmers in the Philippines use a plant alkali to make the snail's mouth swollen and unable to eat. After the swelling goes down, the seedlings grow up. On the other hand, there are also some friendly farmers in Japan who have a very peaceful relationship with the snail. Lin Fangyi says, "the farmers we visited all said that the snail was not a problem, and that they also had a certain quantity in the field, and even described the snail as' rice shellfish'."

Fushou snail eggs can be seen everywhere in the field (upstream and downstream data) in Japan, from a seedling killer to a patron saint of rice.

How can it become a "rice shellfish" in Japan when it is called "premature snail" in Taiwan? The team found that in Japan, only the south of central Honshu had the problem of Oncomelania hupensis, and most of the rice fields were rotation of flood and drought, which was not conducive to the survival of Oncomelania hupensis, unlike when the fields were filled with water during the second phase of fallow in Ilan. Although habitual farmers still use drugs for prevention and control, there are still friendly small farmers trying multiple approaches, trying to find a way for the coexistence of human snails through the mastery of the local climate and the understanding of the life history of Oncomelania hupensis.

One of the ways is to raise seedlings in a hole tray. After the seedlings grow for 40 days and grow four or five leaves, they will not be moved to the field. Second, dry live broadcast, which is similar to the practice of rice fields in Argentina, sows seeds on dry land and does not release water until the seedlings grow strong. At this time, the snail can only eat the weeds that have just emerged, but become a good helper for farmers, thus winning the laudatory name of "rice shellfish."

So is it possible for Taiwan to reduce the damage of Oncomelania hupensis by changing farming patterns? Lin Fang-Yi believes that in order to do so, we must be able to control the water level and make the fields flat enough. at present, Taiwan's rice farming system is highly dependent on alternative tillage, small farmers do not have machinery, and most of the seedlings are in the hands of operators. However, small farmers in Ilan can do experiments first, and now they have plans to introduce suitable small Japanese rice transplanters.

In America, the longevity snail feeds all living beings and saves the endangered snail eagle.

In Argentina, biologists have also seen that Fushou snails play a role at the bottom of the prey. Crocodiles, snakes, raccoons, snails, and rice cranes all eat Fushou snails. For example, snails like to stand on wooden stakes and feast, surrounded by snail shells, which are called "snail graves." And because the distribution of Oncomelania hupensis has been moving northward, the number of snail eagles, which used to be extinct in Florida, has increased. "so it's hard to say whether a thing is good or bad!"

To sum up, Lin Fang-Yi said that placing traps is only a short-term measure, the medium-term plan is to adjust the farming model, and the long-term plan is to build a habitat to summon the natural enemies of the snail. The biology textbook says that Fushou snails have no natural enemies in Taiwan, and this sentence should be deleted. We observed in the field that red-crowned waterfowl, white-bellied rice chicken, colored snipe, and firewood coffin turtles all eat it. "A study once found the shell covers of more than 700 longevity snails in the stool of firewood coffin turtles.

Firewood coffin turtles, also known as "rice turtles", used to be everywhere in the rice fields, but now they have become extinct due to habitat destruction, and many of the above-mentioned birds are also missing. So the rice fields filled with tender seedlings have become a paradise for longevity snails, with endless buffet to eat.