Certain species of Japanese snail can survive birds’ digestive track and emerge alive on the other end, a team of researchers in Japan has discovered.

Researchers from Japan’s Tohoku University fed the bird population of Japanese white-eyed and brown-eared bulbuls with the tiny land snail, called Tornatellides boeningi, in lab tests, and found that 15 per cent of snails survived the bird’s digestive system.

The discovery explained how certain populations of some invertebrates are dispersed and connected within a given ecosystem.

Speaking on the topic, researcher Shinichiro Wada said, “Biogeography of wingless terrestrial invertebrates, in particular snails, is often faced with mysterious long distance dispersal patterns that can only be explained by hand waving arguments involving birds' feet or guts or cyclones.”

According to researchers, tiny snails are more likely to survive a bird’s digestive track. Larger snails often get their shells smashed in the bird’s stomach.

It is already well-known that birds play a vital role in spreading plant life in a reason by dispersing plat seeds through the same process.