My Life with the Gastropoda

At the beginning of this blog, I set out to explore how the natural world is perceived by different people, before seeing how this relationship can be put to good use in protecting threatened nature. This exercise is proving more and more challenging, if not captivating, given its huge scope. Furthermore, I have come to realise that my own perceptions are not static, but have changed dramatically over time. Earlier this week, as I rolled my bike out of the shed, I ran over a garden snail (Helix aspersa) with my back tyre. After shedding a tear, and setting off, I pondered over my long line of gastropod encounters. Now sure, snails are pretty innocuous, sedate... frankly pretty boring creatures given a choice. But that in itself shows just how such a small component of nature can illicit such a range of human responses. To illustrate below, I outline my life with the Gastropoda, spanning generations, continents and cultures.

Peter, Julian and Jonny, Pond dipping in the Peak District

So here I am in the middle, aged 7 or thereabouts with my best friends Peter and Jonny after a pond dipping session at primary school (thinking about it, we had probably caught some pond snails). At a subconscious level, this was probably pretty influential in my future life outlook, but at the surface was more of a piss around. The three of us spent a lot of our childhood messing around outside, whether down in the woods behind my house making dens, or running across the Lindow peat bogs with bb guns. I think as a child, we crave large spaces and the outdoors more as an escape from the confines of a classroom, as opposed to being drawn to nature. Anyway, mollusk memory #1 is of a sleepover at Jonnys house. As usual, after a light rain and being confined indoors, we 'pegged it' (local slang at the time for running) out the back door and into his garden in our socks. Because it was dark, we failed to notice that the lawn was covered in post-rain slugs (Arion ater), until I stood on one. I think before now, slugs had only ever come up in my radar when my mum put down pellets to stop the little bastards from eating her lettuce. So I had no qualms when Jonny ran inside to grab the Tesco economy pot of salt, which we proceeded liberally to apply, so that their little bodies fizzled and burst like sausages.

Mustapha, Number 1 seller of snails at D'jemaa el-Fnaa, Marakesh, Morocco

Mollusk memory #2 also consists of applying seasoning to the little blighters. My mother is french, and my father is a trained chef who would quite happily eat a horse (already has). And so it flows that the starter for our Christmas dinner most years is snails (Helix pomatia) in garlic butter with parsley, baked in their shells in the oven, before being eaten with cocktail sticks. Delicious, although I think the appeal is mostly the garlic butter which is soaked by your hunk of baguette. Later in life, whilst travelling in Morocco with my mate Rob, I had a hearty bowl of snail soup which tasted like soil, tarnishing my idea of snails as a delicacy.

Aged 16, rather than teenage rebellion, I performed my first scientific study on Dog whelks (Nucella lapillus) on coast of Anglesey, North Wales, as part of my A-level in Biology. This was my window to the world of ecological study (besides counting rabbit shit on my grandparents farm in Scotland, and noting in down in a book aged 6), and the time that the idea formed in my mind that "work" didn't need to be performed sat in an office or classroom, but could be outdoors. Mollusk memory #3 was a life shaper for me, not sex or alcohol, but a week in a cagoule measuring snail shells.

Patrick and Doncaster, with a small snail in the middle for comparisson.

Fast forward to university now, where thankfully my lifeshapers were a bit more exciting than a wet beach. Enter Professor John Allen, my lecturer in Evolution who has spent the majority of his life amongst other things travelling the world to better understand the mechanisms of evolution by examining the morphology of snail species. How come a variety of morphs are able to exist in single populations, given that natural selection will act to favour the morph which is most beneficial? This question applies not only to snails, but to life the world over. Sure a snail is small and inconspicuous, but is precisely this which makes them easy to study. After one of Prof. Allen's Evolution lab sessions, my friends smuggled out a pair of baby Giant African Landsnails (Achatina fulica). And so Mollusk memory #4 was receiving 'Patrick' and 'Doncaster' (named after our statistics lecturer, Patrick Doncaster) in a plastic box for my 21st Birthday. My girlfriend at the time voiced no objections, but my housemate described the new residents as "Disgusting".

The snail hunters; James, Julian and Jade

My final Mollusk memory (#5) takes place just over a year ago. After graduating, Professor Allen selected me along with two other students to head to Eastern Uganda for just over a month in order to study polymorphism in a streaked landsnail (Limcoria martensiana). Our first week was spent desperately crossing fields, scrambling down hills, and speaking with local land owers to ask for permission to look on their land for the elusive species. "Ningomsa ekitindinda ekiri omokadju" - We are looking for snails with shells (in the local Rutooro tongue a snail is a slug with a shell). Now, imagine yourself a subsistence farmer, with a plot of land covered in plantain, groundnut and sweet potato groves. Suddenly you are faced with three white foreigners covered in mud, demanding to be shown snails. Occasionally, we were met with howls of laughter, before being asked to pay for such a service. But often, we were welcomed onto their plots and eventually we were able to collect data.

A crater lake, home to snails

One day, we accompanied Jotham Bamakuti, a local entemologist on one of his routine sampling expeditions to the nearby craterlakes. Jotham worked for the Fort Portal vector control unit, whose job was to prevent outbreaks in parasites within the local community. Like my trip with Jonny and Peter all those years ago, we descended to the lake in order to collect some fresh water snails. But this occasion was far more sombre, since the snail in question was Biomphalaria choanomphala, which carries the Schistosomiasis parasite. The parasite causes a chronic illness which damages internal organs, resulting in impaired growth and cognitive development in children, and in some cases mortality. A recent study had found that 50% of children in the local schools were infected with the disease. We potted the samples, and headed back to the car, on the way avoiding a gin soaked rasta who sported a necklace around his neck with a snailshell pendant.

So there we have the humble mollusc: Pest, Delicacy, Subject of Evolutionary Research, Killer and for me Life Changer. Each experience held a new meaning and changed the way that I viewed the small creatures and their place in the world.