Giant Snail - Delights and Dangers -Touch or Don't Touch, a Pet or Not? and Photography Tips

Giant African Land Snail in Singapore. Photograph by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The extraordinary things about the snail are:

1 The huge size - which makes it both unusual and easy to photograph.

2 It is not afraid, does not disappear into its shell and so it is easy to photograph.

3 You can see clearly that it has two protrusions from the head, in fact, four, and uses them to feel ahead and cling on.

4 It progresses not just with slime but a kind of platform underneath.

5 When I read about it I discovered that:

a) It can hibernate and live in colder areas of the USA to the north.

b) Because of its voracious appeite it could be a danger to crops.

c) It has huge numbers of offspring up to 200.

d) It can reproduce as a hermaphrodite. Two females can reproduce. One of them changes sex? (So human beings are not the only ones with gender realignment.) Your female snail can reproduce if you get a second snail. You could end up with dozens 'eating you out of house and home'.

I had thought on initially seeing it, 'How cute! What a novelty. I wonder whether I could keep it as a pet? Would it be messy? Is that legal? Would I be endangering it? What would I need to feed it? Do I need a cage? Could it damage fabrics and wooden furniture? Would it catch insects such as mosquitos or cockroaches? It would be a great talking point. If I went overseas, I could just release it back into the wild."

What I did not realise was that not only might I be a danger to this relatively small creature, it could be a danger to me and you.

It is apparently common to Florida and parts of the USA and is well documented as being a risk to owners or handlers. What is the risk? Meningitis from rat lungworm.

Ah - nature red in tooth and claw. Look but don't touch, applies to the living as well as the dead creatures you see in your garden or parks and out in the wild.

Tip For Travel Photographers

Carry a small ruler in your pocket to show the size of items you photograph. Take at least one photo with the ruler and one without it. You might want to:

a) Use the photo with the ruler.

b) Not use the photo but specify the size of the item you photographed in the caption or text box. Say if the creature you photograph is unusually small or large or a typical size but can grow to a certain size or be within a certain range.

Useful Websites

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/07/10/giant-land-snails-are-on-the-move-and-a-nasty-parasite-is-riding-them-like-a-bus/?