Tragic Love Triangle Is Sad For Lonely Rare Snail, Still Good For ScienceMay 17, 2017 5:09 PM ET
Rare snail Jeremy with the offspring of its two former suitors.
Angus Davison, University of NottinghamIt had been a timeless love story. A garden snail with a rare genetic condition can't mate with normal snails; scientists launch an international search for a mate; the snail becomes a media sensation; and miraculously not one but two possible mates are found.
That's where we left the tale of Jeremy, the rare left-coiling snail,
last November.
But since then, what had been a snail fairy tale has turned into something of a tragedy for Jeremy – its two possible mates proceeded to mate with each other instead. They've been feverishly reproducing, with three batches of eggs between them.
And Jeremy remains alone. He's left "shell-shocked," as the University of Nottingham
charmingly put it.
Finding a mate is particularly hard because Jeremy — and the other two — all have shells that curl counterclockwise, the opposite direction of typical snails. Their sex organs are also on the left side of their heads, meaning that they can't procreate with most other snails because they can't align their organs.
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