Posted on 05/07/2025 6:41:49 AM PDT by Red Badger
A snail with a Picasso-like shell is among 46 dazzling new species recently identified in Southeast Asia. Their discovery highlights both nature’s hidden artistry and the urgent threat of habitat destruction. Credit: Artistic enhancement of photos by Gojšina et al. A tiny snail with a cubist-style shell, named after Picasso, sheds light on undiscovered biodiversity and growing habitat loss in Southeast Asia.
They say beauty is everywhere, if we have eyes to see. For one team of scientists, it revealed itself in a tiny, 3-millimeter snail.
While surveying snail biodiversity in Southeast Asia, an international team of malacologists, scientists who study mollusks, came across a previously unknown species that stood out for its strikingly unusual shape. The research team was led by Serbian PhD student Vukašin Gojšina and his Hungarian advisor, Barna Páll-Gergely.
The newly discovered snail was so visually distinctive that the researchers named it Anauchen picasso, in honor of the renowned cubist painter Pablo Picasso. Unlike typical snails with smoothly coiled shells, Anauchen picasso features sharply angular, rectangular whorls. According to the team, its shell resembles a “cubist interpretation” of more conventionally shaped snails.
The research team just published a 300-page article including the descriptions of 46 new species of microsnails from Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Anauchen picasso. Credit: Gojšina et al.
Tiny Shells, Big Surprises
“Although the shell sizes of these snails are less than 5 mm, they are real beauties! Their shells exhibit extraordinarily complexity,” they say. “For example, the aperture (the ‘opening’ of the shell) is armed with numerous tooth-like barriers, which are most probably useful against predators. Furthermore, several of the new species have an aperture that turns upwards or downwards, which means that some species carry their shells upside-down.”
These apertural barriers and the orientation of the last whorl on the shell were among the primary characters that helped the researchers tell different snails apart.
While many of these new species were collected recently, several, unknown to science until now, were found in the collection of the Florida Museum of Natural History, collected all the way in the 1980’s. It is likely (and in some cases, certain) that the locations where these snails were found have already been destroyed by deforestation and limestone quarrying, which are the major threats to locally endemic land snails in Southeast Asia.
Reference:
“A new start? Revision of the genera Anauchen, Bensonella, Gyliotrachela and Hypselostoma (Gastropoda, Eupulmonata, Hypselostomatidae) of Southeast Asia with description of 46 new species”
by Vukašin Gojšina, András Hunyadi, Chirasak Sutcharit, Piyoros Tongkerd, Kurt Auffenberg, Jozef Grego, Jaap J. Vermeulen, Alexander Reischütz and Barna Páll-Gergely, 23 April 2025, ZooKeys.
DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1235.145281
Looks like a tuba.
I agree. I dislike the majority of his stuff.
Fractals are some of my faves, too. Math is NOT hard, Barbie, LOL!
And don't EVEN get me started on the Fibonacci Sequence. ;)
“I don’t think we’ll be sitting on clouds strumming harps but we’ll be busy with creation. There’s a lot of ‘space’ out there that He can hand over to us to ‘do our best’...at least that’s what I’d like to think...”
Oh, I agree! That’s a GREAT way of looking at Eternity. Your average person doesn’t even know what to do with a rainy Sunday afternoon! ;)
An old preacher of ours said of course there will be work for us to do in Heaven. But it will be enjoyable work. “One of the first things God had Adam do was name all of the animals. C’mon - how cool would that be for a job!?” (Hmm - I wonder what Adam called this snail?)
A geologist friend of mine on his death bed woke up for a bit. “There’s nice rock outcrops in heaven!” Dozed back off. Woke up again. “Beer. There’s beer here too.”
(Yes - the preacher said there is food in Heaven too!)
John 1 - King James Version
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
Angels, a lower life form of Spirit Being, do not have the power of Life creation.
However, they do have the power to take it away. See Job.
Agreed.
Rickles really mellowed out for that role, in comparison to his earlier work. Dude was SAVAGE.
He was so perfect for that role, though.
Obviously. But as God was creating, might He have asked the angels to assist, by stating their preferences?
He does ask angels from time to time for their opinions.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%2022&version=KJV
Indeed. Well-referenced.
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