“Unlock the Secrets: 65 Mind-Blowing Facts That Will Ignite Your Curiosity!”
#1
Image credits: factsdailyy
I was today years old when I learned that a snail once “rose from the dead”. Almost four years after it was glued to a piece of paper and exhibited in a museum. The Egyptian desert snail was donated to the British History Museum in 1846. It was labeled, dated and put on display. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But what the museum didn’t realize was that the snail was actually alive.
Canadian science writer and novelist, Grant Allen penned this amusing account of the incident in Seven Year Sleepers: “Being a snail of a retiring and contented disposition, however, accustomed to long droughts and corresponding naps in his native sand-wastes, our mollusk thereupon simply curled himself up into the topmost recesses of his own whorls, and went placidly to sleep in perfect contentment for an unlimited period.”
#2
Image credits: factsdailyy
Allen went on to write, “the desert snail might have snoozed away his inglorious existence unsuspected, but for a happy accident which attracted public attention to his remarkable case in a most extraordinary manner.” On March 7 in 1850, staffers discovered the exhibit card was slightly discolored. They removed the snail, gave him some water and out peeked his tentacles. The rest, as they say, is history.
I now have something really interesting to share at the dinner table tonight. But does knowing a wealth of facts make me intelligent? Would I be able to join Mensa, the elite club made up of some of the world’s most brilliant brains? Bored Panda reached out to Charles Brown to find out. He’s the Director of Marketing and Communication for American Mensa.
