Search for mate for lefty snail living in celibacy

Ned is a perfectly nice snail. If he had a dating profile, it might read: good listener, stable home, likes broccoli, seeks love.

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Wellington - Ned is a perfectly nice snail. If he had a dating profile, it might read: good listener, stable home, likes broccoli, seeks love.

But he's already exhausted his local options and it's not because he's picky or unappealing.

Instead, he's a common garden snail with an uncommon anatomical problem that's ruining his love life.

Ned's shell coils to the left, not the right, making him the one in 40,000 snails whose sex organs don't line up with those of the rest of their species.

Unless another lefty snail is found, the young gastropod faces a lifetime of unintentional celibacy.

That dire prospect prompted a New Zealand nature lover who found the snail in her garden in August to launch a campaign to find his perfect match. But Ned's quest for true love, perhaps predictably, is slow.