Dutchman's Puzzle

Brown garden snails were imported from Europe to California in 1850 as a source of escargot. Now they’re pretty much everywhere; including my aubergine plants. They’re simultaneous hermaphrodites, meaning they’re both male and female at the same time. When they mate they can both produce eggs: lots and lots of eggs. The snails almost exclusively have clockwise-coiling shells. In the rare event that one curls counter-clockwise, he/she is effectively sterile: only capable of procreating with another one-in-a-million counter-clockwise snail. This was the plight of Jeremy, a left-coiling snail from London, until last November Internet notoriety turned up not one but two potential mates. Jeremy passed away earlier this year, but not before producing 56 right-coiling babies. Researchers suspect the left-coiling gene will show up in the second or third generation. They’ll have to be patient, though. These guys (or gals) don’t do anything in a hurry.