120 Years in 120 Objects
Join the KwaZulu-Natal Museum in celebrating the museum’s 120th year of orbiting the sun. Staff and guest curators have chosen one object or item per year of our existence to highlight to the public. Visit the website and our social media platforms regularly to see the latest object and keep an eye out for information about a physical exhibition later this year!
Today’s Object is from 2000
Rediscovering the left hand awl snail by Nelisiwe Manukuza, Research Technician in Malacology
One of the roles of museum collections is to keep records of rare or uncommon species. Sometimes, species are not seen for decades, but we know of them from records in museums. Rediscovering these animals always creates excitement in museums. Euonyma laeocochlis (Melvill & Ponsonby, 1896) was described in 1896, from the Humansdorp and St Francis area. The rediscovery came as a result of the nature conservation officer Derek Clark’s curiosity after seeing an unusual shell under the rock which was given to Dr Dai Herbert for identification; Herbert immediately recognised the specimens as left-handed awl snails. After the rediscovery of the shell, a successful hunt for live specimens took place in October 2000 resulting in the photographed specimens in the KZN Museum. Additional live specimens were sent to London’s Natural History Museum for DNA analysis.
Like other awl snails, the species has a slender, whorled cone-shaped shell but in this species, the whorls coil anti-clockwise and the opening of the shell on the left instead of the right as it is in a majority of shells. This is a rare enough occurrence that the species was named for this fact: “laeocochlis” means “left hand shell”.
Left hand awl snail shells from the KwaZulu-Natal Museum’s Malacology collections
