A couple of days ago I was wandering through my yard and wishing forspring . As I did , I envision a little snail of a type I had only seen oncebefore .
He await kind of cute , does n’t he ? ( I ’m using the oecumenical “ he ” herein an humanlike signified , obviously , since snail arehermaphroditic . )
About an column inch long , pretty casing , kind of well-disposed looking .
At first glance , I arrive “ the fear , ” though .
Why ?
Because I was afraid I may have falter across a puerile variant of this monster :
Those are elephantine African land snail .
If you dawn the image , you’re able to read a nice , creepy article from National Geographic on how they ’ve invade Dade County , Florida … and how they care to eat the stucco off of houses , not to cite devour almost every plant life coinage of agricultural significance .
Fortunately , after a slight research , I nailed down my escargot as being a native type – the “ blushful wolfsnail . ”
Not only that , accord to UF , it ’s a predatory escargot that will give on elephantine African snail , among other type :
“ Distribution : In the United States : Alabama , Florida , Georgia , Hawaii , Louisiana , Mississippi , South Carolina and southeasternTexas . It is far-flung in Florida , including the Keys . It iswidespread , but usually found singly in hardwood forests , roadsides andurban garden ( Hubricht 1985 ) .
Comments : This snail was chosen as a possible biologicalcontrol agentive role of the giant African snail . bouncy specimen were sent toHawaii in 1955 ( Mead 1961 ) . Although fertilise in Achatina was honor , as well as on theAsian tramp snail , Bradybaena similaris ( Férussac , 1821 ) and native tree snails ( Hart 1978 ) , no genuine control was reach . The snail reproduce chop-chop in Hawaii and , by 1958 , 12,000 snails were harvested for release in other Hawaiian Islands , New Guinea , Okinawa , Palau Islands , Philippines and the Bonin Islands . Chiu and Chou ( 1962 ) gave detail of the biota of Euglandina in Taiwan . Individuals survive up to 24 month and adults lay 25 to 35 eggs in a shallow pocket in the soil . These hatch after 30 to 40 days . In Taiwan , Euglandina consumed as many as 350 Achatina during its lifetime . Euglandina rosea is now consider invasive in Hawaii as it has do the extinction of eight native snail species . ”
Nice . It ’s so forged to the osseous tissue that it makes other snail GO EXTINCT !
And it catch best …
( sink in hereto read the sleep over at The Prepper Project because youtotallyhave to see the eldritch television I posted there ! )
