Ned is a perfectly nice snail, but a rare shell means a doomed love life

Wellington, New Zealand – Ned is a perfectly nice snail. If he had a dating profile, he could read: a good listener, a stable house, loves broccoli, seeks love.

But he has already exhausted his local options and it is not because he is picky or unattractive. Instead, it is a common garden snail with a rare anatomical problem that ruins his love life.

The ned shell wraps on the left, not on the right, making him the 1 snail out of 40,000 whose sexual organs do not line up with those of the rest of their species. Unless another left -handed snail is found, the young gastropod faces an involuntary celibacy.

This terraceuser prompted a lover of New Zealand nature who found the snail in her garden in August to launch a campaign to find her perfect match. But Ned’s quest for true love, perhaps in a predictable way, is slow.

Giselle Clarkson eliminated her vegetable patch at home in Wairarapa on northern island when a snail falling from the green leaflets caught his attention. Clarkson, the author and illustrator of a book of Nature, “the observologist”, has an affection for snails and has long been on the lookout for a loss or left shell.

“I immediately knew that I couldn’t just send the snail to the weeds with the others,” she said. Instead, she sent a photo of the snail, illustrated alongside a gastropod rolled up as proof, to her colleagues from the geography of New Zealand.

The magazine launched a national campaign to find a companion for Ned, named after the left -handed character Ned Flanders in “The Simpsons”, which once opened a store called The Leftorium. This explains the male pronouns that use use for NED, although snails are hermaphrodites with sex organs on the neck and the ability of eggs and sperm.

“When you have a right snail and a left snail, they cannot slip and make their pieces meet in the right position,” said Clarkson. “Thus, a left -handed can only mate with another left -hander.”

The fact that romantic hopes were not a sexual match should have stimulated NED’s prospects. But his reception box remained empty, with the exception of the photos of “snails with a poorly identified right loan”, said Clarkson.

“We have had a lot of enthusiasm and encouragement for Ned, many people who can relate and really want the best for them, as a symbol of hope for all those looking for love,” she said. “But for the moment, no left has done.”

NED’s relative romantic misfortunes have attracted the coverage of world news, but strict biosecurity controls in New Zealand mean that long-distance love is probably not on maps. Other snails on the left were lucky in public campaigns to find partners before, however, so Clarkson remains optimistic.

In 2017, the death of the British sinister snail Jeremy – named after the left -wing politician and Jeremy Corbyn gardening lover – caused a new York Times Billology after his two -year -old life.

A quest to find partners on the left for Jeremy caused the discovery of two potential games, which were initially preferred. But Jeremy finally understood it, and at the time of his death, there were 56 offspring – all wrapped straight.

It was a fascinating chance for scientists to study what produced snails wrapped on the left, with the cause probably a rare genetic mutation. Studies on snail farms in Europe have prompted researchers to estimate around 1 for 40,000 snail is a left -hander.

Back in Wairarapa, the constant presence of Ned in a tank in the Clarkson lounge on a quiet company life and existential questions.

“Perhaps the snails have no concept of solitude,” said Clarkson. What if Ned didn’t bother him to be single?

However, the young snail feels about his prospects, Ned probably has time. Garden snails live for two to five years and his shell suggests that he is about 6 months old, said Clarkson.

However, she feels pressure to see him made in a romantic way.

“I never felt it stressed by the well-being of a common garden snail before,” she said. “I check Ned almost obsessively.”