NO.18

Last week was the end of the National Day holiday. Everyone had finished the last legal holiday in 2015 and returned to the company to collect their thoughts and start preparations. The 7-day long holiday during the Chinese New Year. And since those who go out for fun during the National Day holiday will definitely be stuck on the road, unable to see the scenery or eat delicious food, there are only one fewer people asking encyclopedia questions. Then, I accidentally forgot who asked the question and what it was about (picking my nostrils)

Since there was no encyclopedia content to write about, and I finally had a day off on the weekend, I went to Xianghu Lake. Read a book and bask in the sun by the lake, pretending to be cool. As a result, I saw lumps of pink stuff on the lotus leaf stems and reed stems:

I am very familiar with this thing - the eggs of the apple snail, I have raised them on the island. At that time, many little snails were born. I wanted to stir-fry it for my friends to eat, but unfortunately news broke out in the Imperial City that eating apple snails was infected by parasites, so I had to give up.

Lucky snails

Lucky snails, belonging to the family Snail family, look a bit like our native field snails and are about the same size, but have a wide range of food habits, fast growth, strong adaptability, and better growth and reproduction capabilities. It's awesome. The apple snail is hermaphroditic, but cross-reproduces. In other words, the two snails insert their penises into each other's bodies and then start having sex. The whole process takes at least 4 hours! It is said that a snail has two generations a year and can reproduce more than 300,000 in one day. My dear, I raised a litter of more than 30 babies in one year. The apple snail was originally distributed in the Amazon Basin, but later biological invasion made it a dominant player in the fields south of the Yangtze River. The main harm is also its advantage: a miscellaneous diet and a large appetite. The so-called foreign monk can chant sutras. He can eat and drink and immediately robbed the original land of snails.

The picture above is a comparison between field snails and apple snails. The difference is also very simple: the snail's spiral tower is more pointed and the spiral mouth is smaller, while the apple snail's spiral tower is flat and the spiral mouth is larger. In appearance, the field snail looks like a large snail, while the apple snail looks like a small conch.

Regarding the introduction of apple snails, it was mainly because they were edible and the taste was said to be pretty good. (What? I haven’t eaten rice yet!) But, like all freshwater creatures, there is a danger of parasites if you don’t cook them thoroughly. But if you say that apple snails are pests because of parasites, then Encyclopedia Weekly will think that you have no scientific spirit. If the frog is not cooked, the parasite is called spargania; if the eel is not cooked, the parasite is called gnathostome; if the crucian carp is not cooked, the parasite is called lingual tapeworm... Generally, you do not cook things well. If exposed, there is a risk of parasitic infection. Therefore, Encyclopedia Weekly, as a responsible food weekly, reminds everyone:

You must eat marine sashimi! (In fact, only one time is enough for important things, but 300 times for unimportant things before someone will listen)

For example, for salmon, many unscrupulous merchants will use freshwater rainbow trout as fake salmon. If you eat this sashimi, it will be enough. There is a risk of parasitic infection. Salmon is transliterated from: "salmon", which is actually just a trade name, referring to Atlantic salmon. However, with the rapid development of the seafood sashimi industry, all kinds of salmon and salmon have been classified into salmon. The purpose is to sell different fish at the same high price. However, parasites from seawater organisms are basically unable to parasitize the human body, so there is no risk in eating sashimi. But it’s hard to say for freshwater. Salmon faked as freshwater rainbow trout has a high risk of infection. Therefore, it is best to identify it clearly before feasting on it.

There is a simple identification method: the meat texture of freshwater rainbow trout has narrow intervals, the white intermuscular fat is very thin or almost non-existent, the meat smells fishy, ??the taste is poor, and there is no melt-in-the-mouth feeling; the meat of salmon The texture intervals are wide, the intermuscular fat is wide, the color is bright, and the taste is fresh and sweet. However, this method is not very effective when it comes to salmon tails or when the salmon is stale after repeated thawing.

But there’s nothing wrong with it. Since you’re just pretending to eat sashimi, don’t worry about spending the extra money to go to a reliable restaurant!

Another point:

Fresh seafood sashimi does not need mustard to remove the fishy smell! Fresh seafood sashimi doesn’t need mustard to remove the fishy smell! Fresh seafood sashimi doesn’t need mustard to remove the fishy smell! Say important things three times.

Back to the Lucky Snail. Although the apple snail is an invasive species, it is of great ornamental value as an ornamental snail - it is extremely large, has bright golden shells, has a versatile diet and is easy to raise. This is what I kept when I was on the island. If you don't want it, just fry it. The ones you raise at home won't have any parasites, haha.

The ornamental apple snail is an etiolated individual, called the golden snail, and is an excellent scavenger in the aquarium.

Although they are both invasive species, compared to the Brazilian turtle, I have no objection to the apple snail. First, because apple snails were originally introduced for food, it is inevitable to escape from breeding. Compared with the ignorant and unscrupulous release of Brazilian tortoises, there is still a sense of moral superiority; second, apple snails are an excellent source of protein for other organisms in the field, and three or two are stocked in rice fields. A duck or a few soft-shelled turtles can take care of almost all snails in minutes. And I recently watched a documentary - "South Pacific", which gave me another level of understanding of invasive species.

I claim to have watched a thousand documentaries, but when faced with the quality of the BBC, I still have to marvel: Curly Fu’s voice is so damn feminine!

Produced by the BBC, the picture quality of this documentary is definitely not good. After watching the National Geographic and Discovery Channel documentaries, I then watched the BBC documentary. The BBC documentary was a complete visual feast. The same equipment, but the BBC film can produce a unique look and feel. The viewing angle is very small, but it gives a very grand picture. It was as if under the waves, I looked up and saw the entire South Pacific. As the biggest selling point of this film, Juan Fu's dubbing is simply perfect. The standard "London accent", calm tone, and the objective and scientific tone of the documentary make people extremely enjoyable. It is said that many people use this film as a teaching material for oral listening practice.

"South Pacific" has six episodes, each episode is about 50 minutes, a standard documentary length. It mainly introduces the unique ocean and island ecological culture, stunning natural landscapes, and unique biological species in the South Pacific. Compared with other documentaries with a single perspective, "South Pacific" covers almost all the natural landscapes and ecological cultures of the Pacific, while also exploring the eternal theme of the relationship between humans and nature in a more in-depth manner. The important reason why this issue of Encyclopedia Weekly writes about apple snails is also because after watching "South Pacific", I have another level of understanding of biological invasion.

As the largest ocean in the world, the 20,000 islands in the South Pacific are almost the furthest places from the mainland. There is only distance there, no poetry. But the greatness of nature lies in creating the most beautiful harmony in the most incredible places. At some point, there was the first coconut, the first lizard, and the first person. Although it is a documentary, it is still impossible to avoid the director's subjective thoughts and understanding of the shooting location. Compared with domestic science and education films, the BBC's brilliance lies in letting the truth be explained and expressed through pictures. We will not hear those blunt sermons, nor will we see sensational scenes. Everything happens peacefully and naturally. Let us accept a certain point of view subconsciously. And the point of view the director wants to express can be divided into different opinions. It is completely like enjoying the reading of an excellent novel. I am reminded of the poor simulation and staged shots of "A Bite of China 2", and the contrived words lead the viewer into an unreal story. Great documentaries need to look at these descendants of Darwin!

Compared with movies and other video works, documentaries focus more on true presentation rather than deliberate presentation.

After "South Pacific" showed the reality, people inadvertently had thoughts: The Pacific Ocean is dotted with so many islands, each island has different creatures, and they are so closely related in taxonomy, which makes people wonder. When looking at the wonders of nature, I can’t help but wonder: Is the first marine iguana to arrive in the Galapagos Islands considered a biological invasion?

First of all, what is certain is that those small islands are no longer responsible for the production of living things since they were formed by volcanic eruptions. All the present plants and animals came here later. And just like what Darwin discovered when he arrived, these creatures evolved into different species after going through a long time tunnel: some degenerated, some evolved, and some even died. The natural law of natural selection and survival of the fittest was performed extremely wonderfully on these volcanic rocks before modern civilization arrived. When a certain organism invades another island as the dominant species, does it also cause the elimination and extinction of the species that landed on the island earlier? Or does it promote the evolution of other species? The answer is of course yes. Those "first colonists" who were not adapted to the natural environment and unable to fight against dominant species must only exist as fossils in volcanic rocks. After the desperate competition with the latecomers, the animals that evolved stronger survival abilities naturally became another kind of creature. Therefore, the so-called biological invasion is also a manifestation of biological evolution in a certain sense. The difference is that with the participation of people, the separation of time is very rapid.

Of course, as the greatest influence on biological invasions, humans have always played a less glorious role in their own evolutionary history: species destroyers. From the ancient mammoths to the modern dodos and baiji dolphins, they are all more or less related to human development. Therefore, it cannot be said that human-induced biological invasion is wrong, nor can it be judged that such invasion is correct. Just like the apple snail, there is no problem with biological control. Green mountains and clear waters can bring back the original water birds and turtles. Isn’t this delicious snail meat with crispy shell the best source of protein? The only mistake may have been that the chef wanted to leave work early and didn't cook the spicy snails thoroughly.