Jeremy the Lefty Snail Is Dead, but His Offspring Are All Right
> Jeremy won international fame for a mutation that caused his shell to coil left instead of right. For years, people searched for another lefty snail with which he could mate. Shortly before his death, she was found.Since most of the snails (all?) are hermaphrodites isn't this use of "he" and "she" wrong? (or at least misleading?)> All of the babies were born with a right-handed shell. This means the gene causing a snail’s directional twist (and body asymmetry in other animals), described last year in Current Biology, could take more than a generation for its recessive form to appear.This doesn't make any sense. Is the left handled shell caused by a recessive gene? If this were the case, the offspring of two left handled snails should be also left handled. Is it possible that this was not caused by a genetic mutation, and it's just that a tiny amount of normal snails get the wrong orientation?