From a little garden in New Zealand, comes a lonely snail looking for love.
Ned is ying to another mollusc’s yang, but finding a match for him has become a nationwide effort.
That is because Ned’s shell spirals left, while almost all other snails have right spiraling shells. It’s a one in 40,000 genetic condition among the common corno espersum, or garden snail, and it means Ned’s reproductive organs don’t line up with most others.
“I was quite breathless for a moment,” says Giselle Clarkson, an author, illustrator and self-described ‘observologist’ who found Ned while digging in her garden in Wairarapa, just north of capital Wellington.
“I was just pulling out this plant, and a snail tumbled into the dirt and I was just about to scoop it up and just chuck it off to the side, when I realized what I had,” Clarkson told CNN.
It was a serendipitous moment for Ned, now named for Homer Simpson’s left-handed neighbor. Clarkson was aware of this rare asymmetry in snails from her work with the magazine New Zealand Geographic.
Clarkson now keeps Ned in a fishtank in her home, protecting him from hungry birds while he waits patiently for his first date. To help him, young and old across New Zealand are being encouraged to take up “observology”, or “the science of looking,” created by Clarkson in book she wrote to inspire young naturalists.
“That’s the heart of this whole thing, getting people to have this little moment of connection to nature by paying attention, and honing their observational skills in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise,” Clarkson says.
“The more you pay attention to what’s there every day, the more likely you are to actually notice the unusual and the anomalies or the rare things.”
Ned’s romantic prospects now lie with New Zealanders taking a moment to connect with the natural world around them, and focusing on the creatures often overlooked. Clarkson thinks people’s love of nature will give Ned a chance.
Then it’s down to him.
“I think the odds are not bad. But, you know, they might be physically compatible once they get together, but it doesn’t mean that sparks will fly. Their personalities will have to match.”
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