Meet Ned: The Lonely Lefty Snail Looking For Love

Finding a mate in any species can be a challenge. Whether you need to fight off rivals, throw down the song performance of a lifetime, or simply be at the right place at the right time, animal mating is undoubtedly complex. The situation is even difficult for common species like garden snails, as poor Ned the lefty will tell you.

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Ned is a common garden snail from New Zealand, and while that might not sound like a key problem when it comes to looking for love, he has one major difference. Ned is a lefty. He has a left-spiraling shell, a condition that also causes his reproductive organs to be flipped. Only meeting another lefty can save Ned from a loveless life. 

The condition affects roughly one in 40,000 snails, so it is possible that Ned’s future mate is out there. In fact, Ned’s plight has inspired a nationwide campaign urging the New Zealand public to rummage around in their gardens in search of another left-spiraling snail. 

Snails are hermaphrodites, having both male and female reproductive organs near their heads. Breeding involves shooting “love darts” from their bodies to their respective partners, think less like a dart and more like a harpoon with a rope attached. These contacts between the snails allow hormones to pass that increase the likelihood of a successful mating, but do not contain sperm or genetic material. After this process, mating continues and can last for several hours. 

Ned is not the first unlucky-in-love snail to make the news. In 2016, Jeremy was found in a London compost heap with his left coiling shell. A campaign was successful in finding him not one but two potential mates named Tomeu and Lefty, but disaster struck when the pair chose to mate with each other, leaving the lonely Jeremy as a sad third wheel to their courtship.

Unphased by Tomeu’s previous fling, Jeremy did eventually mate with Tomeu and fathered dozens of babies, all with right coiling shells. Unfortunately, it was to be Jeremy’s swan song as the snail died shortly after. 

Now, the hunt is on to find Ned a mate, with NZGeo leading the search. So next time you're weeding the veg garden, check to see if a potential snail love interest is waiting to be discovered.