Dr Ellinor Michel is a molluscan systemetist and ecologist at the Natural History Museum and chair of the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. Her work focuses on malacology (the study of molluscs), taxonomy and nomenclature, and the ecology of the Great Rift Lakes of Africa. In this in-depth conversation, she describes how a snail’s spiral shell is a “magical world” etched with secrets of our past, discusses the “important yet painful” process of the human appetite for knowledge, and explains how fossils have helped her cope with her slug phobia. 

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