Foot-Long, Sex-Crazed Snails That Pierce Tires and Devour Houses

(Lissachatina fulica)


In the 1960s a boy vacationing with his family in Hawaii brought a few giant African land snails to his home in Florida and once he got bored with them he gave them to his grandmother who later turned them lose.

Ah, the innocence of children. So free of corruption and cynicism, so sweet and sincere. Laughing and playing and introducing supremely destructive monster snails to Florida, where the beasts eat almost anything that’s green and then crap all over houses — quite literally laying waste to whole neighborhoods.

The invasive species soon became a problem, and it took 7 years to eradicate them. They can be found in Brazil and obviously Hawaii where eradication attempts have not been as successful.

the giant African land snail is a hermaphroditic love machine. “Snails have female bits and male bits,” explained biologist Robert Cowie of the University of Hawaii, “a single pore, through which if you’re acting as a male, a penis extrudes, or if you’re acting as a female, through which the other snail puts its penis in. And in some cases they can do it reciprocally.”

Thus the giant snail never meets another snail it can’t get busy with. Once fertilized, the snail will bury several hundred eggs a few inches below ground, and because of the incredible size of the species, the young will emerge far larger than native varieties, making them that much more resistant to predation.

The snail found its way back to Florida in 2011.

this time, according to Cowie, it may well be “bizarre, voodoo-like religious proceedings” to blame. The snail’s slime, he says, is coveted in certain South American rituals, and practitioners may have released the giant snails into their Miami-area backyards, hoping they’d breed freely.

The sharp shells have been known to puncture tires.

Florida agriculture officials have collected 137,000 giant snails in just over two years. Compare that to the relatively few 17,000 collected in the first eradication in the 1960s, and you soon see the magnitude of this problem.

Today, Miami is simply overrun with the things. Not only do the giant snails chow on some 500 economically important plants in the area, they’re devouring houses. It seems they have a taste for stucco, which contains precious calcium. Without a ready supply of the stuff to fuel their amazing growth, they’ll simply turn on each other — at least in captivity.


“A long time ago I had some African snails in the lab, in an aquarium-type tank,” said Cowie, “and apparently I wasn’t providing a sufficient source of calcium, and they would just eat each other’s shells. These snails produce big shells, they need a lot of calcium, and a lot of people these days when they keep snails they’ll put a bit of cattle bone in the terrarium for the snails to chew on, just to get the calcium.”

And because I know you were wondering: Yes, you can eat giant African land snails. But cook them well. I mean really well. Just boil them for a month. Grill them with napalm if you have it. Because like many snails and semi-slugs, this species carries the deadly rat lungworm.

Here is the LINK to the article at WIRED there is just so much to the story I can't possibly do it justification by summarizing. I live up close to Orlando and have not seen them up here yet. I think they look kind of cool but not cool enough to be over run by them. The article gives a weird story about the voodoo practice with them. Yuck!!!

Lets see I now know of the giant iguanas, Boa's, and Pythons that are invasive here and now giant snails. We also have a giant mouse worth billions. Ha Ha Florida.

reply to post by Grimpachi


betcha they make good bait for fish...

Escargot anyone?

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


Escar... No

eww

Looks like you'd be chewing a fist sized curdled snot. *shudders*

Those things are terrifying.

reply to post by Grimpachi


All it would take is giving a bunch of borred kids some salt and presto...... problem solved!

reply to post by Grimpachi

Have you ever seen them procreate? They give a whole new meaning to the term "dickhead".

WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP BRINGING THIS STUFF HERE????

Yes... All caps was necessary. Florida - C'mon Florida. You guys have to tighten it up a bit down there. You have a regular breeding ground down there for all sorts of crap that was not even meant to be in the US... and it's living and PROCREATING successfully.

How long do you have until your chihuahuas start going extinct? How long is it until your children have to treat the whole yard like "hot lava" (you remember)?

You must strike with an iron fist.... before it starts creeping northward.



Y'all can keep the snails too.

Qumulys
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

Escar... No

eww

Looks like you'd be chewing a fist sized curdled snot. *shudders*

edit on 3-2-2014 by Qumulys because: (no reason given)

We can solve the hunger crisis as well. 2 birds one .. shell?

reply to post by Alchemst7


They ask in the article to please not kill them with salt it seems it is a cruel and unusual death. They do have poison for them that I assume is more humane. The salt basically makes them die from dehydration which is a horrible way to go for any creature.

reply to post by Grimpachi


Doesn't FARK have an entire section dedicated to Florida, due all the effed up weird news that comes out of that state?

Flesh eating bath salt zombie people, sex crazed giant snails that eat houses with voodoo people that worship their slime, and what else?

Florida, and Australia.
Those are two places that are too weird and effed up and full of crap what will probably kill and eat you, including the people, such I'm not cotton on ever visiting when and where I have a say in the matter.

reply to post by Grimpachi


They're kinda cute I guess, but so are Tasmanian devils, and I wouldn't want thousands of them roaming the countryside.

It's hard to imagine snails being an invasive species, it would be one slow invasion. But just like all invasive species they need to be eradicated before they get a foothold. I know that every time I whomp a cane toad there is another dozen to take it's place.

I believe I have an answer to eradicate this problem...

Send them over here to France... I have a farmer neigbour who has a whole field of Garlic and I am sure that I can get hold of a couple of tons of butter and a few sprigs of parsley...

However... careful during the hunting season as they are vicious buggers... they go straight for the neck...



Kindest respects

Rodinus

reply to post by Alchemst7


That is an absolutely horrible video.

Can you imagine how awful that would be... So cruel...

reply to post by Infinitis


Agreed. That is no different then torturing a stray cat. Or any other creature for that matter.

Yesterday at work while driving the patrol car a big lizard was blown onto my wind shield. He must of been hiding in the crack between the hood and the wind shield. I was doing about 45 MPH and he was holding on for dear life. I didn't want him to fly or jump off and be squished so I pulled over, caught him, and put him in the woods.

I guess some people are just cruel.

Wow. All those invasive species, and flying cockroaches, em, palmetto bugs (yeah, whatever!)

And my sister wonders why I won't move down there.

I'm thinking those buggers wouldn't survive our current foot and 1/2 of snow up here. And I'm good with that.

reply to post by chiefsmom


I live in Florida. It's not that bad. Well, as long as you spray for bugs every few months.

Oh and as long as your careful when you swim in the ocean or brackish water. You have to watch out for sharks, sting ray, jelly fish, manowar, saltwater crocodile, crabs, sea snakes, barracuda, moray eels, stone fish, goliath grouper etc.

Oh and as long as your careful in the woods and watch out for bear, panthers, rattlesnakes, cotton mouths, coral snakes, bobcats, scorpions, copperheads, wild pythons, wild boar, venomous spiders, mosquitoes, fire ants, bull ants, etc.

Oh and as long as your careful when you swim in a freshwater lake. You have to watch out for alligators, snapping turtles, gar, mud fish/bow fin, freshwater crabs, etc.

Now that I think about it......

reply to post by Grimpachi


What an interesting species! How very efficient they can do each other at the same time and both get pregnant. Seriously cool hedge against extinction.

Thanks for the post. F&S

reply to post by Grimpachi


Beer, they can set out bowls of beer.

reply to post by TorqueyThePig


LOL sounds lovely, this darn planet is uninhabitable.