December 2010
3 posts
Snakes and snails and evolution, oh my
This past week, I read several articles about snails and snakes. Specifically, the way that the direction of the whorl on a Satsuma snail’s shell determines whether or not it is susceptible to snake attack. Essentially, a single gene controls the direction of the whorl, and which makes this adaptation a beautiful illustration of natural selection acting on a random mutation.
The snail...