The Snail Factory

From Guatemala With Love

The Snail Factory

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In fact the snail is from Belize and its name is the result of a peculiar scientific anecdote:

The first Barfing Snail was indeed discovered within Guatemalan borders. Sighted in 1912 by Brian S. Fitzgerald while scouting for an opera theater, he didn't realize that the little guy had been riding around on his luggage since the Dangriga Port. It wasn't until 1955 that biologists noted the frequency of its sighting in Belize outweighed that of Guatemala by far and confirmed the land to which the Barfing Snail was endemic.

The name stuck though, and the Guatemalan Barfing Snail is called that to this day. The name did not stick to any related species however, such as the Nicaraguan Gagging Abalone, the Venezuelan Vomiting Mollusc, the Argentinian Spew Slug or the Regurgitating Puke-Mussel of Paraguay.