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- Dr John Stanisic, 72, reckons the slimy creatures are fascinating
- His incredible work has earned him the title of ‘snail whisperer’
- He loves educating kids about snails
Peering down at the bag of snails, I was surprised to see so many shells of different shapes, colours and sizes.
‘I had no idea they could look so different,’ I said to my colleagues.
It was January 1978 and, aged 28, I worked at the Australian Museum, Sydney.
My job was to curate the vast land snail collections.
‘There is so little known about them,’ I said.
Two years later, I took up a position at Queensland Museum.
There, I went on my first field trip between Gympie and Rockhampton.
Turning over logs, rocks and looking under tree bark, we collected over 13,000 specimens in two weeks.
‘It was worth the effort,’ my colleague Darryl, then 29, said.
I agreed, even though I was stung by ants, scratched by vines and shrubs and experienced the pain of native stinging trees.
Over the next decades, I collected and documented the land snails of NSW and Queensland, discovering more than 900 new species.
‘Your job is strange,’ friends said. I think they struggled to see the appeal of snails and their slime!
Sometimes I’d bring snails home to show to my kids, Danielle and Ngaire.
‘Can I keep this one. It’s so cute,’ Ngaire, then nine, said, naming a snail Fergus.
In March 2010, I went on a date with Lorelle, then 59.
I’d known her in the ’80s when our kids went to the same school.
Both now divorced, we soon fell in love.
A school teacher, she was interested in science and asked me about the snails.
‘I want to learn more about them,’ Lorelle said, after she retired in 2016.
She loved their diversity, and wanted to share my passion.
Much to my delight, Lorelle went back to uni to do a master’s degree in snail science.
Meanwhile, the local media began calling me ‘The Snail Whisperer’!
‘That’s an appropriate name,’ Lorelle laughed.
Lorelle and I got married in September 2019.
Over the years, I’d get to name the new species I found.
After Steve Irwin sadly passed away, I named a new snail Crikey in his honour.
In 2020 when my grandson, Ngaire’s son Tom, turned 12, he asked me to name a snail after him.
So I did, just as I had for his siblings Jack and Summer, then 14 and 10.
‘This is so cool,’ Tom said.
These days, I live in Albany Creek, Qld, and spend my time between research and talking about snails in schools, and yearly at the Brisbane Science Festival.
I want everyone to know how amazing snails are.
Did you know they each have 40,000 tiny teeth?
And it’s slugs, not snails, that eat up your vegie patch.
But they do play an important role in keeping the soil nutrients rich.
With still a lot of work to be done in the snail world, I don’t intend to retire anytime soon.
But with Lorelle by my side, I hope to leave a lasting legacy, and spread the word about these amazing animals.
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