The giant African land snail will eat cardboard, stucco and its siblings' shells
It grows to 20 centimetres long, lays around 200 eggs at a time several times a year, and will eat crops, trash, cardboard and occasionally the stucco off walls. Starting from East Africa, the giant African land snail has crossed oceans to Hawaii, Brazil and Florida, where eradicating one outbreak took nearly a decade.
Lissachatina fulica is native to East Africa, but people have carried it around the planet as a pet, as food and by accident. It was in Madagascar before 1800, reached India in 1847, China by 1931 and Hawaii by 1936, then spread across the Pacific islands. In Brazil it went from a first introduction in 1988 to 23 of 26 states by 2007. Miami had to stamp out populations found in 1966 and 2011, each campaign lasting nearly ten years, and the snail is illegal to sell or keep anywhere in the United States.
Adults reach about 7 centimetres across and 20 or more long, among the biggest land snails alive. Young shells carry brown and cream bands, while newer whorls turn smooth and glossy brown; a yellow-bodied form is nicknamed the white jade snail in China. Shell growth follows rainfall, leaving bands a little like tree rings. Hiding from daylight in leaf litter or debris, it climbs trunks and walls when conditions suit.
It will eat almost any plant, from fruit and vegetables to ornamental flowers and weeds, and young snails swallow soil for its calcium. It also scavenges dead animals and dung for protein. Each snail has both testes and ovaries, the male organs maturing first. Self-fertilisation is possible but rare and produces small, weak clutches, so partners usually trade sperm at night after courtship involving head-rubbing that can last half an hour. Up to 90 percent of attempts are turned down, mating may run from 1 to 24 hours, and stored sperm stays usable for up to two years.
Eggs hatch in 8 to 21 days, and hatchlings promptly eat their own shells and their siblings'. Adult size comes in about six months, though growth never fully stops, and the snails live 3 to 5 years in the wild. Outside Africa they damage farms and native plants, crowd out native snails and spread disease to people.
Source: Lissachatina fulica
