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Internet 'shellebrity' reflects on origin of rare mirror-image snails: Origins of rare mirror-image snails

Davison, Angus; Thomas, Philippe

Authors

Philippe Thomas



Abstract

© 2020 The Author(s). While animal bodies are typically bilaterally symmetric on the outside, the internal organs nearly always show an invariant left-right (LR) asymmetry. In comparison, snails are both internally and externally LR asymmetric, outwardly obvious in the shell coiling direction, or chirality. Although some species of snail are naturally variable for chirality, sinistral individuals occur very rarely in most species. The developmental and genetic basis of these rare mirror-imaged individuals remains mysterious. To resolve this issue, the finding of a 'one in a million' sinistral garden snail called 'Jeremy' was used to recruit citizen scientists to find further sinistral snails. These snails were then bred together to understand whether their occurrence is due an inherited condition. The combined evidence shows that rare sinistral garden snails are not usually produced due to a major effect maternal Mendelian locus. Instead, they are likely mainly produced by a developmental accident. This finding has relevance to understanding the common factors that define cellular and organismal LR asymmetry, and the origin of rare reversed individuals in other animal groups that exhibit nearly invariant LR asymmetry.

Citation

Davison, A., & Thomas, P. (2020). Internet 'shellebrity' reflects on origin of rare mirror-image snails: Origins of rare mirror-image snails. Biology Letters, 16(6), Article 20200110. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0110

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 1, 2020
Online Publication Date Jun 3, 2020
Publication Date 2020-06
Deposit Date Oct 2, 2023
Journal Biology Letters
Electronic ISSN 1744-957X
Publisher The Royal Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 16
Issue 6
Article Number 20200110
DOI https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0110
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4856425
Publisher URL https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0110