Of Snails and Men

I guess most of the first time visitors are curious about the title of my blog. Why snails? They are creepy crawlers for some and a bit uninteresting for most. Those were also my first impression of these animals a couple of years back. But it really changed big time when I started my undergraduate thesis. Being a BS Biology major, we have an option to take either all course, special problem or thesis. I chose thesis.

Of Snails and Heavy Metals

The topic assigned to me is to determine the effects of heavy metal ions (copper, zinc, lead and cadmium) on the embryos of the freshwater snail, Radix quadrasi. It took me a while to develop full commitment to study the snails, let alone extend my thesis into a lifelong passion. Anyway, I began to look at snails differently. I realized they are very good biological model for toxicity studies because of their inherent slow movement (they can’t easily escape drastic changes in their habitats). They can be bred in the laboratory and they produce numerous transparent eggs (at my control). You can readily see the abnormality induced by the heavy metals on the snails. However, same as other living organisms, one has to have patience and dedication to take care and properly maintain them in the laboratory so they don’t die. Meaning dead snail equals no data equals no thesis-no graduation. Fortunately, my thesis went well (I guess) that it won as best student poster paper in an international conference; it enabled me to go to Australia to present the other half of it and ultimately resulted into a scientific article (my first legitimate contribution to science).

Of Snails and Mountains

After graduation, I was employed as a biology instructor in my university alma mater. I thought this was a great opportunity to continue my research on the freshwater snails. I wanted to explore further the effects of heavy metals at the cellular and molecular level. That was my intention then an opportunity to train in Sabah, Malaysia came along. I consider this experience as one of the turning points in my life. There I met one of my heroes, a Dutch malacologist, Dr. Menno Schilthuizen who introduced me to forest community ecology using land snails as models. Upon returning to the Philippines, I started to rethink my research direction. There and then I began to conceptualize my topic for my Master’s degree. I will work on Philippine land snails. Being an archipelago, we have many islands serving as laboratory for the speciation (formation of new species) of many snails. It is quite interesting that only a handful of Filipino biologist are engaged in this kind of research amidst the vulnerability of snails to destructive anthropogenic activities, especially on the mountains. I suppose that’s where I will come in, my purpose- to inform as many Filipinos possible about these unique, not so creepy and definitely very interesting animals.    

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