Jeremy the snail finally found a snail to have sex with
Not being able to find a local woman he's compatible with usually isn't enough to hold a man back from searching the globe for one to sleep with anyway.
And the same goes for snails, apparently.
Jeremy the garden snail has a genetic mutation that causes his shell to swirl counterclockwise, moving his sex organs to the left side of his head. Most snails' shells swirl clockwise and have sex organs on the right side of their heads, in case you weren't up on the sex organs of snails.
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And after a worldwide search, scientists finally found two female snails who might be willing and able to mate with Jeremy.
"In most snails, the genitals are on the right hand side, just next to the head. In rare left coiling snails, the genitals are on the left hand side,"geneticist Angus Davison explained in an email to Mashable. Davison leads a group of scientists at the University of Nottingham in the UK.
"That means that when right and left coiling snails try to mate, they simply can’t get it together," he said.
While single dudes who have trouble finding a lady typically just turn to Tinder, it seems Jeremy chose the old-school personal ad route. The University of Nottingham team put out a video on Oct. 21 seeking a female, left coiling snail.
The reason they were so keen on finding a mate for Jeremy is because of the scientific possibilities.
"We want to understand why left coiling snails are so rare, and if the condition is inherited, what are the genes involved?" Davison told Mashable. "We can only begin to do this by seeing which direction the shell coils in his/her offspring (they are hermaphrodite), then use genomic methods to work out which bits of the DNA code for the differences."
He went on to explain that not only would this be a breakthrough in snail research, but it could also reveal information about human genes.
"Earlier this year, in research published in the journal Current Biology, we discovered a gene that determines whether a snail’s shell twists in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction," Davison wrote. "The same gene also affects body asymmetry in other animals – including possibly humans – and research using these snails could offer the chance to develop our understanding of how organs are placed in the body and why this process can sometimes go wrong when some or all of the major internal organs are reversed from their normal placement."
After the ad went out, two female snails with the same genetic mutation were quickly found. Lefty, another snail with reversed coils, was also from the UK. She and Jeremy now reside in the same tank. Davison told NPR that the two have been gently biting each other (the snail version of flirting), but they have yet to mate.
(Jeremy is likely a virgin, and Lefty was suddenly transplanted into a tank with a stranger, so we understand why things are moving slowly.)
Another female snail with the same mutation from Majorca, Spain, is next in line to meet Jeremy, whether or not things work out with Lefty.
Our best wishes go out to the happy couple – and we hope introducing another woman doesn't mess things up for them.
[H/T: NPR]
Topics Animals
Sophie was a Viral Content Intern for the Watercooler channel. More writing and other stuff by Sophie can be found at www.sophiehirsh.com.
