[5] A specimen from Egypt, initially thought to be dead was glued to an index card at the British Museum in March 1846.

[6] The Canadian writer Grant Allen observed:[7] The Museum authorities accordingly ordered our friend a warm bath (who shall say hereafter that science is unfeeling!

), upon which the grateful snail, waking up at the touch of the familiar moisture, put his head cautiously out of his shell, walked up to the top of the basin, and began to take a cursory survey of British institutions with his four eye-bearing tentacles.

So strange a recovery from a long torpid condition, only equalled by that of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, deserved an exceptional amount of scientific recognition.It is reported that the museum specimen was then transferred to a large glass jar where it lived for a further two years, subsisting largely on cabbage leaves.

[8] Later studies demonstrated that the species could survive in suspended animation without food or water for even longer.