Why Are Giant Land Snails Invading Florida Again?

good thing. And that's because Florida has seen an invasion once again of the notorious giant African land snail and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services confirmed the presence of the giant African land snails on June two in Pascoe County after a master gardener first reported seeing one. Six days later, the department quarantined to the area to try to contain and treat these invasive snails. The quarantine means it's against the law to remove plants, yard waiste, debris,

compost or building materials from this area without permission. The quarantine extends from a radius of about half a mile from the identified snail population and may change grow if more snails are found. A public information director from the department told CNN that these snails likely originated from the illegal pet trade. But why are these snails such a problem. It turns out they're one of the most invasive pests on the planet. You can think of snails as a

sort of biological cleanup crew. They'll eat just about any plant matter and anything that's dead too. This species will eat at least five hundred different types of plants, so they're potentially devastating to Florida's agriculture and natural areas, but they can also be harmful to humans. They can carry a parasite known as rat lung worm that's known to

cause meningitis. Humans can get infected with rat lungworm if they eat raw or undercooked snails infected with the parasite, and people can also get sick after eating contaminated produce such as lettuce. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it doesn't know whether the giant African land snails in the United States are infected with rat lung worm, but it warns people should not handle the snails without wearing gloves. It also advises people thoroughly wash fresh produce

to prevent infection. The snails are illegal to own, import, or sell in Florida without a permit for these reasons and that name. They're not known as giant snails for nothing. These massive mollusks dwarf all others in Florida and anywhere else on Earth. Their shells are cone shaped, usually light to dark brown in color, with golden stripes that run the length. They can grow up to eight inches or

twenty centimeters long. Compare that to other typical Florida snails, which average about one to one and a half inches in length. That's about two and a half to four centimeters. Researchers believe that the giant African land snail is originally from East Africa, though it's now found in the Ivory Coast and Morocco and throughout the Indo Pacific basin the Caribbean, Brazil, and northernmost Argentina. It was first detected in Havana, Cuba,

and has rapidly spread across the island ever since. A population was discovered in Costa Rica in one as well. These snails can survive in many environments, though they do require calcium because that's how they grow those shells. They thrive in locations rich with limestone, moral and even concrete and cement. They live on average between three and five years, but can live as long as nine years, and in that time they reproduce fast adult snails of these species

have both male and female sexual organs. They still need to mate to produce eggs, but any given snail can impregnate any other given snail, or a pair can mutually impregnate each other, and once they do, one snail can produce between four hundred and a thousand eggs a year. The snails bury the eggs in cool soil, and when they hatch, juvenile snails eat their eggshells and then burrow underground for up to two weeks. If can get bad for adult snails, they can bury themselves in soil and

stay dormant for up to a year. This isn't the first time Florida has seen an influx of giant African land snails. The pests were first detected in nineteen sixty

nine and eradicated in nineteen seventy five. The most recent eradication took eleven years from one during which the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services worked with the U. S d A and canine detector dogs to find and remove one hundred and sixty eight thousand, five hundred and thirty eight snails from thirty two areas in Broward and Miami Dade Counties. Now the work has begun in Pascoe County.

Today's episode is based on the article Giant African land snails invade South Florida again on House to Forks dot com, written by Sarah Glime. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang and Ramsey Yew. Before more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,