This Tiny New Species of Snail Looks Like It Was Designed by Picasso

Scitech Daily ^ | May 06, 2025 | Staff

[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

[Gil4]

Not a new species. A newly discovered species. Despite evolutionary newspeak there have not been any species using the traditional definition of such.

The traditional definition is a group which is able to interbreed and produce fertile offspring. It's fairly common for a genetically isolated sub-group to lose the ability to breed with the main group when re-introduced to the group. There are plenty of examples of new species happening fairly quickly (years, not millennia).

[Nervous Tick]

>> The ‘spiral’ is God’s signature.

Wonderful observation!

[JimRed]

Newly discovered, but not “new”.

[Red Badger]

Think about it, what is DNA?........A double helix, TWO SPIRALS INTERTWINED......................

[dfwgator]

Double helix in the sky tonight
Throw out the hardware
Let’s do it right

[Nervous Tick]

👍🏻✝️

[Red Badger]

Hurricane = Spiral

Tornado = Spiral

Water going down the drain = Spiral

Many dangerous bacteria are spirochetes/spirals

Spirals are everywhere you look.

The Nautilus Shell, perhaps the most beautiful of all shells, is a perfect LOGARITHMIC SPIRAL:

...............

[left that other site]

More Dali than Picasso, in my most humble opinion.

[Hebrews 11:6]

With your extensive art education and training and usage, Mary-Lou, your humble opinion also serves as your expert opinion.

[left that other site]

Awww...that’s so sweet of you to say!

I’ve Dali’d a bit at the museum. 🎨

[Hebrews 11:6]

Obviously, Mike, on this thread along with many others, you have demonstrated amply that you are a connoisseur of God's creativity; indeed, in this thread alone you present to us a magnificent testimony of it, for which we are profoundly in your debt. Thank you exceedingly.

That makes you an ideal believer to ask: In the coming Eighth Day of Creation, following the events described in Revelation 20-22, do you suppose God will include us in His creative process, somewhat like--to employ a poor analogy--elves in Santa's workshop?

[left that other site]

Double helix in the sky tonight
Throw out the hardware
Let’s do it right

I will, when all my dime dancin' is through.
I'll run to you.

[Red Badger]

I would rather clean toilets in Heaven that be exalted in Hell.................

[Hebrews 11:6]

There is that.

“...we are confident of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation.”

[duckbutt]

Enjoying this thread and want to chime in on what may happen. Just my conjecture, nothing “biblical” about it. God is the Creator. We are made in His image. We are creatures of creation —the arts, architecture, healing, growing, etc. 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......

[duckbutt]

Enjoying this thread and want to chime in on what may happen. Just my conjecture, nothing “biblical” about it. God is the Creator. We are made in His image. We are creatures of creation —the arts, architecture, healing, growing, etc. 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......

[duckbutt]

crap “created” one response too many

[Red Badger]

All of Creation was created for our benefit.

Once we are transformed into Spirit-Beings, like God, Jesus, and the angels, we will be able to explore the entirety of Creation from one end of the Universe to the other, if there is such a thing. It may in fact be infinite.

Billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, each with a retinue of planets to explore. And not just Earth-like planets, but all types of planets.

Being Spirit-beings, we would be impervious to gravity, heat, radiation and hyper-pressures.

Imaging being able to walk on Jupiter and Saturn or any number of ‘Super-Jupiters’ that have been discovered around nearby star systems.

The prospects are endless.

It was all created just for us..................

[duckbutt]

Can you imagine God smiling and handing us a golden shovel and saying, “get to work”?

[Hebrews 11:6]

Questions arise:

1. To what extent, if any, did God involve the angels in our present creation? If He did, did He allow them to create without His close supervision? Did He specify forms and parameters and then allow them free reign within those guidelines? Were the fallen angels included? Are they responsible for weeds and viruses?

2. In a future creation, what would be His goal? New life forms? Mike emphasizes our personal connection to this creation--how much tighter that bond to a creation we helped make?!