If you feel like your love life’s D.O.A., then consider Ned the snail.
Ned, as The Associated Press reports, is a rare snail that has a shell coiled to the left. Given the anatomy of a snail, that means Ned can only mate with other snails of the left-coiled variety.
“When you have a right-coiling snail and a left-coiling snail, they can’t slide up and get their pieces meeting in the right position,” says author and illustrator Giselle Clarkson, who discovered Ned. “So a lefty can only mate with another lefty.”
While there are many fish in the sea, only 1 in 40,000 snails have a shell that coils to the left. Statistically, that doesn’t bode well for Ned’s chances to have a family.
Clarkson, who named Ned after the famously left-handed Simpsons character Ned Flanders, has since launched a campaign hoping to link the snail up with a mate.
“We’ve had lots of enthusiasm and encouragement for Ned, a lot of people who can relate and really want the best for them, as a symbol of hope for everyone who’s looking for love,” Clarkson says. “But as yet, no lefties have been forthcoming.”
A left-coiled snail named Jeremy previously made headlines and ended up siring 56 offspring before its death in 2017.