Angels, Demons and Snails

Finally, we managed to get out and hunt the banded snails that I needed for my project in my current OU course S366 Evolution. I had prepared some historic data some time ago but for one reason or another we hadn’t had chance for me to collect my sample. Claire had kindly agreed to come with me so that I wouldn’t feel, quite, such a prat but we still felt fairly self conscious. Claire spent most of her time, on guard, warning me when someone was coming so I could stop looking for snails and act normally before they got too close. “Someone’s coming!”She would whisper quickly, because every moment counts when you are trying not to be detected hunting snails. I would quickly get up and we would walk as normal as possible until they had passed and then I could return to my task safely.

I found some real good historic data collected near Amptill in 1925 so that was our first port of call. I found the site from the coordinates given and printed out a plan/map from Google earth. We couldn’t actually get to the location that this sample was taken because it is now private land enclosed by fences so I guess that the local snail population has moved on anyway. Luckily there was quite a large woods with walks through nearby so we chanced our arm there. Not a single snail of any species was found, either in these woods or on the roadside nearby. Nothing for it but to go to the second best site at the Open University. It was a weekday so we couldn’t park anywhere and came home empty handed. We decided to go back Sunday morning when few people would be around but it was raining until about 11.30 so we went after it had stopped. This historic site wasn’t quite as old as my first choice and it was actually taken by our course chairman 2 years ago by the river Ousel at the back of the cricket pitch.

We got good samples there and after I had recorded our finds, I replaced the snails and headed back home to start my report. We found quite a few, over 50, but couldn’t use the young ones as it is difficult to sort those as they have not grown their stripes properly yet and we ended up with a sample of 40. By the end we were getting old hands at snail hunting and didn’t even try to hide our intentions when the odd jogger passed by. Claire’s new job became “snail police” and she had to watch the snails and stop them escaping until I had collected enough. They are slippery little customers and Claire didn’t actually stop them escaping, just raised the alarm.

That evening we had a more normal evening and went to our favourite cinema with a bottle of wine each, glasses and Scooby snacks to watch the newly released, “Angels and Demons”, the adaption of Dan Brown’s book. Just as I though this book was better than “The Da Vinci Code”, we thought that this film was also better. It’s a bit like Harry Potter for adults, can’t wait for his next book and film now.