An entire nation is being recruited to scour their gardens in the search for a mate for a very special snail.
Ned, as the lovelorn New Zealand invertebrate has become known, needs some help due to the fact that his shell spirals left, while almost all other snails have right spiralling shells.
His is a a one in 40,000 genetic condition among the common corno espersum, or garden snail, which also means Ned’s reproductive organs don’t line up with most others.
New Zealand Geographic has come to the rescue, asking people across the country to rummage through their gardens and local parks in a bid to find a similarly left-coiled snail for Ned to meet.
“I was quite breathless for a moment,” Giselle Clarkson, an author, illustrator and self-described ‘observologist’ recounted of when she discovered Ned while digging in her Wairarapa garden 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 realised what I had,” Clarkson told CNN.
Named after Homer Simpson’s left-handed neighbour Ned Flanders, Ned is currently residing in a fish tank at Clarkson’s home – safe from hungry birds – as he patiently awaits his first date.
New Zealand Geographic advises potential matchmakers that the best places to find snails is in damp, shaded areas in the day, or on a mild night when snails are more likely to roam in the open.
If another leftie is found, the discoverer is encouraged to pop it in a jar with some spinach and to get in touch with New Zealand Geographic.
Then it’s up to Ned and his prospective partner.
“I think the odds are not bad. But … they might be physically compatible once they get together, but it doesn’t mean that sparks will fly. Their personalities will have to match,” Clarkson warned.
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