VOLUME 15 NUMBER 2 (July to December 2022)

From Predator to Savior

Story goes one summer in the seventies, Dr. Baldonado Olivera was watching predatory cone snails prance around in his aquarium at his summer home in the Philippines when he had an aha moment. When Toto saw those Conus snails a light bulb lit up and he came up with a new research topic to pursue in his lab in the Philippines. How exactly does the venom work on its prey when the harpoon like part of the snails stick out and squirt them out? What in this venom paralyze the tiny fishes and even fellow snails that give the predator snail time to eat them up, even leisurely at times?