The worm that infects these snails is Leucochloridium paradoxum.
Its range includes Northern and Central Europe, and I first heard of them through Sir David Attenborough’s Trials of Life series, which filmed an afflicted snail in Denmark.
To make the snail come out in the open in the middle of the day is quite remarkable, but for the parasite to make the tentacles look like caterpillars, well, that is an evolutionary masterpiece.
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