CLEOPATRA’S SNAIL: Natural history stories about snails and other animals

By Monge-Nájera, Julián, Sr.

Book Id: WPLBN0100303601
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.1 MB
Reproduction Date: 5/12/2021

Title:	CLEOPATRA’S SNAIL: Natural history stories about snails and other animals
Author:	Monge-Nájera, Julián, Sr.
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, Science, Zoology
Collections:	Authors Community, Science
Historic Publication Date:	2021
Publisher:	Monge-Nájera

Member Page:	Julián Monge
Citation APA MLA Chicago Monge-Nájera, B. J. (2021). CLEOPATRA’S SNAIL: Natural history stories about snails and other animals. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.cc/

Description
This “digital pocketbook” is composed of short natural history stories, mostly about snails, but also about other animals, and their often-overlooked presence along human history. Instead of just describing their biology, the author imprints on each narration all the mystery and curiosity subjacent in these creatures and their relationship with nature. The book includes two chapters. In the first chapter, it develops the relationship between snails and the history of humanity, capturing the timeline from the antiquity of Cleopatra herself, to snails in the land of Vlad Tepes, a.k.a. Dracula. It reveals how, despite the tiny size of most species, snails have used unsuspected ways to conquer the most isolated corners of the planet. Finally, these stories unveil curious behaviors and still-mysterious biological associations with other animals. In chapter two, you will meet other animals, not less important of course to human history: combining literature, science, and everyday life, the book explores little known stories of insects, velvet worms, dinosaurs, lizards, and birds. The range of subjects is wide, including phylogeny, the fossil record, behavior, ecological interactions, much natural history, and even humorous mathematics. Katherine Bonilla Badilla, Editor, Costa Rica.This “digital pocketbook” is composed of short natural history stories, mostly about snails, but also about other animals, and their often-overlooked presence along human history. Instead of just describing their biology, the author imprints on each narration all the mystery and curiosity subjacent in these creatures and their relationship with nature. The book includes two chapters. In the first chapter, it develops the relationship between snails and the history of humanity, capturing the timeline from the antiquity of Cleopatra herself, to snails in the land of Vlad Tepes, a.k.a. Dracula. It reveals how, despite the tiny size of most species, snails have used unsuspected ways to conquer the most isolated corners of the planet. Finally, these stories unveil curious behaviors and still-mysterious biological associations with other animals. In chapter two, you will meet other animals, not less important of course to human history: combining literature, science, and everyday life, the book explores little known stories of insects, velvet worms, dinosaurs, lizards, and birds. The range of subjects is wide, including phylogeny, the fossil record, behavior, ecological interactions, much natural history, and even humorous mathematics. Katherine Bonilla Badilla, Editor, Costa Rica.

Summary
Hand in hand with science, and with a detailed point of view, this book will take you in a fascinating journey through history, to see which snails were there, unnoticed, at the feet of dinosaurs; in the carts of the Roman imperial army; in the castles of the Middle Ages; in the home of Charles Darwin, in the backs of flying insects today. And always in the form of fascinating and vivid short stories fully backed by the scientific literature.

Excerpt
In 45 BC the troops of Julius Caesar defeated the Numidian king Juba I. Juba committed suicide in Tunisia, but Julius Caesar took his young son to Rome, a little boy who would be in “preschool” if he lived in our times. Little Juba was not mistreated; on the contrary, he was treated as a noble and received the best education, and he spoke and wrote perfect Latin and Greek. Years passed, Julius Caesar was assassinated, and Cleopatra and Antony died, but they left behind a daughter named Cleopatra Selena II (Roller, 2003). In 28 BC, in need of an ally in Africa, Emperor Octavius Augustus sent Juba II to reign in his father's country, and there his story would be joined with that of a small snail. Accompanied by his wife Cleopatra Selena II, the wise Numidian king enlarged the ancient Carthaginian population of Volubilis and made it capital of the kingdom. History tells us that he and Cleopatra Selena were wise sovereigns. Juba II wrote excellent books about archeology and Mediterranean history, as well as two zoological treatises, which were widely cited by Pliny the Elder (Roller, 2003). Years passed and the city was devastated by an earthquake in the 4th century, but among the stones and vegetation, one inhabitant survived, the Cernuella virgate (Hogan, 2007) snails. But Cernuella virgata should not be there for a very simple reason: it is an European snail, not an African snail. How did it get there? My hypothesis is that the snail’s arrival in Volubilis occurred in the 2nd century, when the local revolts forced Emperor Marcus Aurelius to send Roman troops and build a wall around the city (Rogerson, 2010). As in the 1990s, when Iraqi snails were detected in military equipment returning to the United States after Operation Desert Storm, Roman snails must have traveled attached to military equipment and other supplies carried by the Roman troops. This does not exclude the possibility that the Romans willingly took them as food, since these particular species of snail is still consumed in Spain, where the Romans stayed for centuries. Ironically, most of what we know about this snail's life we owe to Australian malacologists. Why? Because just like it went to North Africa, Cernuella virgata reached Australia, where it has been an agricultural pest since the beginning of the 20th century. Thanks to this we know that it reproduces in time for baby snails to enjoy the good microclimate of the rainy season, that larger individuals lay more eggs, and that they normally stay in a restricted area (Baker, 2008), equivalent to a human not moving in his life more than 3 km from their house. And yet they have come a long way in these two millennia!

Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1. SNAILS 1. SNAILS IN HISTORY: THE MOLLUSCS BEHIND CLEOPATRA, MARC ANTHONY AND DRACULA 2. HOW DID THAT SNAIL GET THERE?! HOW SNAILS USE OTHER ANIMALS TO LITERALLY FLY TO NEW PLACES 3. MYSTERIES OF SNAIL BEHAVIOUR: BAT-SNAILS AND OTHER SURPRISES 31 CHAPTER 2. OTHER ANIMAL STORIES: FROM THE FIRST INSECT EVER TO DINOSAUR INTIMACIES 1. INSECTS 2. VELVET WORMS 3. DINOSAURS 4. LIZARDS 5. BIRDS