Wellington – NED is a perfectly pleasant snail. If I had a dating profile, I could say: good listener, stable home, he likes broccoli, seeks love.
But he has already exhausted his local options and it is not because he is demanding or unattractive. Instead, it is a common garden snail with a unusual anatomical problem that is ruining its love life.
NED’s shell is enrolled to the left, not to the right, which makes it 1 in 40,000 snails whose sexual organs do not align with those of the rest of their species. Unless another left -handed snail is located, the young gastropod faces an involuntary celibacy life.
That terrible perspective promoted a lover of the nature of New Zealand who found the snail in his garden in August to launch a campaign to find his perfect partner. But the search for Ned’s true love, perhaps predictably, is slow.
An improbable appointment in the garden
Giselle Clarksson was weeding his home garden in Wairarapa, on the North Island, when a snail that fell from leafy vegetables caught his attention. Clarksson, author and illustrator of a book about nature, “The Observologist”, feels affected by the snails and for a long time I had been looking for a sinister or enrolled shell on the left.
“I immediately knew that I couldn’t simply throw the snail back to weeds with others,” he said. Instead, he sent a photo of the snail, photographed next to a gastropod wrapped to the right as proof, to his colleagues from New Zealand Geographic.
The magazine launched a national campaign to find a couple for NED, named for the left -handed character Ned Flanders in “The Simpsons”, who once opened a store called The Leftorium. That explains the male pronouns that some use for NED, although the snails are hermaphrodites with sexual organs in the neck and the capacity for both eggs and for sperm.
“When you have a wrapped snail on the right and a snail rolled to the left, they cannot slide up and make their pieces come together in the right position,” said Clarkson. “So a left -hander can only mate with another left -handed.”
It is not necessary for long -distance partners to submit their application
The fact that romantic candidates do not need to be a sexual couple should have increased NED’s perspectives. But its entrance tray has remained empty, except for photos of “snails rolled to the right optimistic and erroneously identified,” said Clarkson.
“We have had a lot of enthusiasm and breath for NED, many people who can identify and really want the best for them, as a symbol of hope for all those looking for love,” he said. “But so far, no left -handed ones have been presented.”
NED’s identifiable romantic problems have attracted news coverage worldwide, but strict out -of -year -old biosafety controls mean that long -distance love is probably not in the letters. However, other snails rolled to the left have been lucky thanks to public campaigns to find a partner before, so Clarkson remains optimistic.
In 2017, the death of the British left -handed snail Jeremy, named for the leftist politician and lover of Jeremy Corbyn gardening, caused an obituary of the New York Times after his agitated life of two years.
A search to find companions rolled to the left for Jeremy caused the discovery of two possible couples, which were initially preferred with each other. But Jeremy finally dominated him and, at the time of his death, he had 56 offspring, all rolled to the right.
It was a fascinating opportunity for scientists to investigate what the snails rolled to the left produce, being the most likely a rare genetic mutation. The studies of snail farms in Europe led researchers to estimate that approximately 1 in 40,000 snails are left -handed.
This is probably not a romantic comedy
Back in Wairapa, Ned’s constant presence in a tank in Clarkson living room has caused a life of quiet company and existential questions.
“Maybe the snails do not have a concept of loneliness,” Clarkson found himself. What if NED doesn’t care to be single?
Regardless of how the young snail feels about his perspectives, NED probably has time. The garden snails live from two to five years and their shell suggests that he is about 6 months, Clarkson said.
Even so, feel pressure to see him performed romantically.
“I had never felt so stressed before the well -being of a common garden snail,” he said. “I review NED almost obsessively.”