A garden snail named Ned exhibits a left-spiralling shell that mirrors the typical right-coiled form. The left coil flips the shell and reverses reproductive organs, preventing mating with normal snails. The condition affects roughly one in 40,000 snails, making compatible partners vanishingly rare. Ned was found in a Wairarapa back garden and recognized as unusual by Giselle Clarkson. Ned was given a home in a fishbowl. A national campaign now asks people across New Zealand to search gardens and parks for other left-coiled snails to provide a potential mate.
If you thought your dating pool was limited, spare a thought for Ned, a very rare snail unearthed in New Zealand. Due to a left-spiralling shell, Ned has a vanishingly small chance of finding a mate a predicament that has sparked a nationwide campaign. Nearly all common garden snails have shells that coil to the right but Ned's left-spiralling shell is like a mirror image,
Illustrator and author Giselle Clarkson was digging up vegetables in her garden when a snail dropped into the dirt. She was about to toss it away when she noticed something was a bit off. Something was different but I couldn't figure it out the first thought that went through my mind was that it was a different species, she tells the Guardian.
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