{"id":1937,"date":"2021-08-28T20:15:42","date_gmt":"2021-08-29T02:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/?p=1937"},"modified":"2025-06-09T18:22:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T18:22:31","slug":"queen-cleopatra-and-the-mysterious-snails-of-volubilis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/2021\/08\/28\/queen-cleopatra-and-the-mysterious-snails-of-volubilis\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Cleopatra and the mysterious snails of Volubilis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Author: Juli\u00e1n Monge N\u00e1jera, Ecologist and Photographer <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windswept in the middle of a forgotten valley in North Africa, an ancient city bears the curious name of Volubilis. Volubilis exists thanks to a love story that almost everyone has heard of, that of Antony and Cleopatra. And its ruins are home to something that should not be there: a snail that seems to be made of marble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ruins of Volubilis. Source: Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cpreschool\u201d 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\u00b9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00b9. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Coin from the former Kingdom of Mauretania: obverse: Juba II of Numidia; reverse: Cleopatra Selene II. Source: Wikimedia<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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 virgata<\/em>\u00b2 snails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Roman snail Cernuella virgata<\/em>. Source: Wikimedia<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 28 BC, in need of an ally in Africa, Emperor Octavius Augustus sent Juba II to reign in his father\u2019s country, and there his story would be joined with that of a small snail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Cernuella virgata<\/em> should not be there for a very simple reason: it is an European snail, not an African snail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did it get there?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My hypothesis is that the snail\u2019s 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\u00b3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, most of what we know about this snail’s life we owe to Australian malacologists. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because just like it went to North Africa, Cernuella virgata<\/em> 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\u2074, 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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally published  in Blog Biolog\u00eda Tropical: 15 july 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

REFERENCIAS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u00b9 Roller, D. W. (2003). The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene.<\/em> Reino Unido: Routledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b2 Hogan, C. M. (2007). Volubilis, The Megalithic Portal.<\/em> Retrieved from https:\/\/www.megalithic.co.uk\/article.php?sid=14906<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b3 Rogerson, B. (2010). Marrakesh, Fez and Rabat.<\/em> Londres, Inglaterra: Cadogan Guides<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2074 Baker, G. H. (2008). The population dynamics of the mediterranean snails Cernuella virgata, Cochlicella acuta <\/em>(Hygromiidae) and Theba pisana<\/em> (Helicidae) in pasture\u2013cereal rotations in South Australia: a 20-year study. Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture<\/em>, 48<\/em>(12), 1514-1522. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: Juli\u00e1n Monge N\u00e1jera, Ecologist and Photographer  Windswept in the middle of a forgotten valley in North Africa, an ancient city bears the curious name of Volubilis. Volubilis exists thanks to a love story that almost everyone has heard of, that of Antony and Cleopatra. And its ruins are home to something that should not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scientific-investigation","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1988,"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937\/revisions\/1988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investiga.uned.ac.cr\/urbanecology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}