A "Love" Dart Allohormone Identified in the Mucous Glands of Hermaphroditic Land Snails.

ABSTRACT: Animals have evolved many ways to enhance their own reproductive success. One bizarre sexual ritual is the "love" dart shooting of helicid snails, which has courted many theories regarding its precise function. Acting as a hypodermic needle, the dart transfers an allohormone that increases paternity success. Its precise physiological mechanism of action within the recipient snail is to close off the entrance to the sperm digestion organ via a contraction of the copulatory canal, thereby delaying the digestion of most donated sperm. In this study, we used the common garden snailCornu aspersumto identify the allohormone that is responsible for this physiological change in the female system of this simultaneous hermaphrodite. The love dart allohormone (LDA) was isolated from extracts derived

SUBMITTER: Stewart MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4825001 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature