Venom Induces Paralysis in Prey

a light brown and beige striped cone snail on a sandy bottom floor has a white striped fireworm halfway consumed in its shell

Biological Strategy

Cloth-of-gold cone

AskNature Team

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Organisms

Many living systems must secure organisms for food. But just as one living system must capture its prey to survive, its prey must escape to survive. This results in capture and avoidance strategies that include trickery, speed, poisons, constructed traps, and more. For example, a carnivorous plant called the pitcher plant has leaves formed into a tube that collect water. Long, slippery hairs within the tube face downward. When insects enter the tube seeking nectar, they lose their footing and slide inside, unable to climb out and escape being eaten and digested by the plant.

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Gastropods

Class Gastropoda (“stomach-foot”): Snails and slugs

There are at least 40,000 known species of gastropod, with many more yet to be discovered, making it the largest class of mollusks. These animals exhibit torsion, meaning their internal organs are twisted 180° during development. The majority of gastropods have shells, and most open up on the right side. The largest gastropods are the size of a small child (3 feet, or 1 meter) while the smallest are barely visible to the naked eye.

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Conus victoriae cone snails catch food by injecting a potent venom that renders prey paralyzed.

Venom produced by the cone snail, Conus victoriae, contain proteins that induce paralysis in prey. The conotoxin is more than two orders of magnitude more potent than the current leading drug for neuropathic pain. These toxins can be models for use as analgesics for treating neuropathic pain in humans at lower concentrations. Conventional analgesics have many downsides including their gradual loss of effectiveness, their potential for creating addiction and abuse, and their harmful side effects.

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