Giant African Land Snail
The giant African land snail (Lissachatina fulica) is a snail that can grow to 20 centimeters long and is one of the most damaging invasive species in the world. Originating in East Africa, it has spread across the tropics.
The giant African land snail (Lissachatina fulica) is a snail that can grow to 20 centimeters long and is one of the most damaging invasive species in the world. Originating in East Africa, it has spread across the tropics.
🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open Giant African Land Snail in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Lophotrochozoa lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.
A Voracious Invader
The snail eats hundreds of plant species, including crops, and even gnaws stucco and plaster for calcium. It lays up to about a thousand eggs a year and each snail is both male and female. It can bury itself and survive dry spells.
A Disease Risk
Snails can carry the rat lungworm (Angiostrongylus cantonensis), a parasitic nematode that can cause eosinophilic meningitis in people who eat raw snails or contaminated produce. See Giant Roundworm.
Eradication Efforts
Spread was often aided by people who carried snails as pets or food. Florida declared an eradication in 1975, and again in 2011 after reintroduction, and the species is a quarantine concern in many countries.
Giant African Land Snail at a Glance
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Scientific name | Lissachatina fulica |
| Kingdom | Animalia |
| Phylum | Mollusca |
| Class | Gastropoda |
| Order | Stylommatophora |
| Family | Achatinidae |
| Field Guide group | Lophotrochozoa: Mollusca (Mollusks) |
| Diagnostic feature (Field Guide) | Massive conical brownish banded shell reaching 20 cm, broad muscular mucus-secreting foot, rasping chitinous radula. |
| Maximum shell length | About 20 centimeters |
| Native range | East Africa |
See Also
- Burgundy Snail — a land snail
- Cane Toad — another notorious invader