The Silverfish

A scientist, a snail researcher, and a historian observe and reflect on one object – a map belonging to neurobiologist K S Krishnan. The map is one of the many papers that document a collaborative project during the early 2000s, initiated by K S Krishnan to collect cone snails from across the east and west coastline of India and study its venom for therapeutic purpose.

Samira Sheikh is a historian of South Asia. She works at Vanderbilt University as an Associate Professor of History and is the Obaid Siddiqi Chair for 2025-2026 at the Archives at NCBS. Her research interests include politics and religion in South Asia from 1200-1950, early modern trade, and early Indian maps.

“The first thing I notice when I open the map is that it comes from the Manorama Yearbook of 2001. The second thing I notice is that the script is too small for me to read without blowing it up. Middle age, grrr! The third thing that dawns on me is – oh, there are annotations in neat little hand-drawn islands, and I wonder what they say. The more I stare at the annotations, duly expanded, the more I realise that I need the metadata to make sense of them. I know, of course, that Krishnan studied cone snails, so it makes sense that he concentrates on the coastline of Tamil Nadu. I wonder what “landings” might mean. Are these the landing spots of the snails he studied? But why is one landing in Kanyakumari near a bus stand? Did snails land near the bus stand? Now I am getting frustrated. I want to examine the map in person, because the digital object does not help me make distinctions between Krishnan’s fine-nib pen and the printed lines of the map. Near Periakuppam, I notice that he has noted a name and phone number, and near Cuddalore, the name of Mr. Raja Mohammed Shells and the time of 5–11 a.m. I am intrigued. Was Mr. Raja Mohammed a shell dealer? Surely he did not sell shells at five in the morning? I am hooked. I want to know more about Krishnan’s travels and contacts and research methods.”

Mani Ramaswami is a Professor of Neurogenetics in Trinity College Dublin and Adjunct Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore. His lab at NCBS conducts research related to neural circuit function, plasticity, and maintenance. Mani was also one of the collaborators involved with K S Krishnan during the cone snail project. The following note is an excerpt from an interview with The Silverfish:

“[The conotoxin project] was sort of an adventure. We didn’t know how to find cone snails. Cone snails live at multiple levels – some of them are in shallow water, some of the more exciting ones are extremely deep waters. We went with Venkateswaran to work with his supervisor, Fernando, who was in Porto Novo, Tamil Nadu. It became clear quite quickly that Venkateswaran talked a very good game but didn’t seem to have ever found a cone snail. So here we were with this guide, who didn’t know where we were going. My mother decided to come along because she likes to travel and so did my cousin who is a professor at Berkeley in Electrical Engineering because he wanted a free trip. The four of us went, including Krishnan, and met Fernando. He was fairly mysterious. I don’t think he ever collected cone snails, although he was broadly interested and very knowledgeable in marine biology. We went to a few places and pretty much found nothing except for a few shells and many dead fish in the middle of the beach. One day, we went to a shell dealer named Raja Mohammed. We saw how he was making various interesting things from the shells and he said he gets them from fishermen who go trawling for shrimp off of some beach. And if we go to that beach at the time when [the fishermen] are coming in, maybe we can look at what their by-catch is.

So, we went there at the end of June, it was very very hot. The main trawlers would park some distance away and they would transfer their catch on to these things called catamarans, which were hollowed out wood logs and they would bring their stuff out back over the water in the shimmering heat. They came in and spread their by-catch around and there were all these things in them, it was pretty wild. And among all the creatures, there were cone snails as well. After we got the cone snails, we had to figure out what to do. A bunch of very energetic students who were masters students in Porto Novo, came along and participated in helping dissecting the venom duct and putting them in alcohol. So for many days, I thought this is never going to work, we are never going to find anything, and all of a sudden there was an explosion of cone snails.

On the handwritten annotations on the map:

From the little bit I know about fishing, I know that the catches come in based on the tides. I think the mornings just happened to be Krishnan’s timetable, he was an early bird. Raja Mohammed never went to the beach, he was just the shell guy. He would tell the people what kind of shells he wanted and the shells would be delivered to him. He had a way of cleaning and processing the shells, they stank to high heavens after getting the creature out of them. He would then bury them in sand, and polish them and make lamps and curtains and all sorts of things with them. A throw-away is, when they had conches, that were always sealed by this little operculum, which was taken out by these fishermen and put in a box. And these were sent off to China where they were considered to be aphrodisiacs or something. But Fernando pointed out to me that they always hold it in the left hand when they do it and that the left-handed conch shells are the ones which are most common and those would fit nicely in your hand. But the right-handed conch shells would be curved differently and those were the ones which were worth a lot of money because for religious purposes people always wanted them. So the sacred conch shells are always right-handed ones. There were these different sub-worlds of shell dealers and shells that were also opened up during the trip.”

Prachi Gupta is a PhD scholar, making a ‘snail paced’ progress to figure out why they are so twisty. She is presently working at the Hiroshi Hamada lab, Ashoka University, Sonipat/NCBS, Bengaluru.

“Reflecting on this map today, it serves as a reminder that science is rarely a straight line. It’s a series of landings, late-night notes, and the shared curiosity that bridges the gap between a neurobiologist in 2001 and a researcher in 2026. Different species, different questions, but the same enduring fascination with the snail. Looking at this 2001 map of the Tamil Nadu coastline, I am immediately struck by the “grit” of science. As a scientist who also works with snails – though in a very different context – my perspective is usually shaped by the controlled environment of a laboratory. But seeing the handwritten annotations of the late neurobiologist K. S. Krishnan – notes scribbled in the margins – takes me somewhere entirely different. This isn’t just a map; it’s a living document of fieldwork. It’s a record of the moments where high-level biology meets the logistical reality of the “boots-on-the-ground” hunt. What catches my eye isn’t the geography, but the timings. Scribbled along the coast are phrases like “Landings 4-6 PM” and “Shell Factory – Near Cemetery. ” These aren’t just data points; they are the logistical remnants of a hunt.

They represent the patience required to be a biologist. Whether you are waiting for a specific cell to divide under a microscope or waiting for a fishing boat to dock in Tuticorin at dawn, science is a game of being in the right place at the right biological moment. There is a beautiful symmetry in being “baited” by the same organism. Reflecting on this today, some of the details are delightfully human and slightly ridiculous. I love that in the world of fieldwork, a “Near Cemetery” landmark is a perfectly acceptable navigational beacon, making the search for venomous snails feel like the opening scene of a gothic mystery. The fact that this groundbreaking research was mapped out on a free Manorama Yearbook supplement is the ultimate “scientist on a budget” move. It’s a reminder that we don’t always need fancy software to do great work; sometimes we just need a pen, a map, and a lot of persistence. This map captures the social side of science – the reliance on local knowledge, the physical exhaustion of the search, and the coffee-stain energy of a project in motion. It is a beautiful reminder that before the data can be analyzed, it has to be found in the world – sometimes right next to a cemetery, between 6 and 9 PM. Between the bench and the bay lies the same pursuit: curiosity shaped by patience, place, and the enduring pull of a small, spiral shell.”