Shell digitisation for disease control: creating a digital collection of schistosomiasis host snail shells

Abstract The gastropod shell collection at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London houses a wealth of gastropod specimens from around the world. Many snail species are relevant to human health due to their role as hosts for medically important parasites. This includes blood flukes of the genus Schistosoma , which cause human schistosomiasis. Schistosomiasis control programmes often rely on efficient and precise identification of host snail species, but traditional resources available to these efforts are limited both in scope and accuracy, hindering the progress of control programs. To bridge this gap, we present a digitisation effort using the African snail shell collections housed in NHM London. Shells were digitised using traditional photography and micro computed tomography (µCT). µCT scans were used to produce 3D models optimised for digital visualisation and 3D printing. To ensure full accessibility, models were uploaded to the Sketchfab online public repository with registration numbers and links to the NHM data portal. To further aid identification efforts, we present a detailed pipeline to create 3D-printed shell replicas, accompanied by short 3D animations showcasing key morphological characters of snail shells. 3D models and 3D-printed replicas can also be used as teaching tools, contributing to the dissemination of knowledge of tropical diseases critical to the efforts of endemic countries. Further, we showcase how digitisation approaches can be applied to similar museum collections.