Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Rightys and leftys can’t mate??

Imagine being told that just because you were left handed you couldn’t mate with a right handed person. This is apparently true in pond snails, which not only are believed to have brain ‘handedness’ but they are physically unable to mate with another snail whose handedness differs from their own.

Hayley Frend, a student studying the sex life of pond snails has shown through her research that invertebrates too have behavioral handedness. One of the behaviors which is mating is thought to be pre-programmed from the mother’s genes. The pond snail starts mating by moving in small circles and depending on handedness depends on which way you move. Two snails of opposite handedness will usually make mirror images of each other and be unable to mate. Like humans left handedness if much less common and unfortunately for the lefties of the snail world they have a much smaller pool of mates to choose from.


Article found here



Amanda Joyce (week 9)

13 Comments:

At 7:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is very interesting. I would like to see the reaction of a left handed person when they are told that they can only mate with another lefty. (I know you are not implying this to humans, that it is about the snails) That is so odd. I wonder how this came to be. Did the article mention anything about its evolutionary path, and why it might of evolved this way. I wonder what advantage it is to the snail to only mate with a snail that is of the same orientation.

Katie Cole

 
At 2:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is very unusual. I would not have expected snails to have 'handedness' let alone have it make a difference in their behaviour/lives. Because they are not able to mate, are they a seperate species? or perhas could they be becoming one? very nice article.

Erica Damon

 
At 4:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

How strange. Will a righty or lefty snail breed the opposite type? I wonder what the statistics for each type are. This is ver interesting from an evolutionary perspective. It makes me wonder if there used to be more leftys and they are just declining.

Michele Copeland

 
At 10:52 AM, Blogger PWH said...

I wonder what the genetic based reason is for this, perhaps someday there will only be "left handed" or "right handed" snails since one is more prevalent then the other.

Jennifer Smith(9)

 
At 10:52 AM, Blogger PWH said...

I wonder what the genetic based reason is for this, perhaps someday there will only be "left handed" or "right handed" snails since one is more prevalent then the other.

Jennifer Smith(9)

 
At 2:52 PM, Blogger PWH said...

I have never heard of this before, very interesting. The first thing that comes to mind is natural selection. Once you said that the leftys aren't common I pictured them never really being able to reproduce and further die off. Do you think this will happen in this species of snails, that one day there will only be rightys?

Chantal Gomes

 
At 1:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

this seems soo strange. i wonder why there is a reason they prefer one side of another to mate with. what is the selection pressure to do so. however, a very interesting article.

-Matthew Sousa

 
At 11:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow, just because of difference in handedness pond snails don’t get to mate that is somehow funny yet it makes sense because of mating behaviors. If left handed pond snails mate with only left handed snails doesn’t that mean all their kids will be left handed as will and then doesn’t it seem like 2 different pond species would form, left and right handed pond snails? I don’t know if it makes sense to you thought, but the article is quite interesting.

Tenzing Y. Dundutsang

 
At 3:49 PM, Blogger PWH said...

interesting, is this something specific to pond snails or is this seen in some other animals too ?

Hessom Minaei

 
At 5:58 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that snail shells have a "handedness" in the direction that the shell spirals. If the left handed snails have a significantly smaller gene pool than the right handed, wouldn't evolution be selecting against them? Since they have less of a chance of finding a mate and producing young as the right handed snails, their reproductive fitness would be lower.
-Corinne Delisle

 
At 10:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

That was an interesting entry. I was wondering besides selecting a mate does 'handedness' have any affect on other social aspects of pond snails' lives?

- Debbie Theodat

 
At 11:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is so interesting! When a right and right handedness mate, can they possibly have offspring that are left? Also, do you think that the lefts will eventually die off? Are there any other differences between the two types?

Alyson Paige

 
At 2:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Update:

In response to the blogs, i did a little bit of research and am not sure if two rightys can reproduce to have a lefty offspring, i wouldn't think so. In saying that i think natural selection is selecting against the lefties, it is possible that the left handed snails also have something else about them that makes them not as able to survive in their habitats.


Amanda Joyce

 

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