sensory-deprived fish that are easier to engulf with their large, distensible false mouths; once engulfed, powerful paralytic toxins are injected by the snail into each fish. Image credit: Jason Biggs / Baldomero Olivera.“It is very unlikely that it is serving a different purpose,”
said Dr Helena Safavi-Hemami from the University of Utah, who is the first author of a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “This is a unique type of insulin. It is shorter than any insulin that has been described in any animal. We found it in the venom in large amounts,”