Dr. Cramer and Oglethorpe students search for fossils in 2011

In 2011, Dr. John Cramer, now emeritus professor of physics, discovered two new land snails species. Both were found while looking for fossils, one in Georgia on a field trip with Oglethorpe University students and the other in northwest Virginia.

The Virginia shell has now been described and given the name Shale Bladetooth in Daniel C. Dourson’s new book “Land Snails of West Virginia.” With only five shells ever found,  it has no species name as yet, but is in the genus Patera.  The Georgia shells are amber snails of the genus Calcisuccinea.  DNA work has not yet been done on either species.