The size of a fist
Its shell can be twenty centimetres long. It is among the largest land snails in the world.
The Congo rainforest · Slugs, snails and worms
Giant African land snail
Lissachatina fulica
A very large snail with a tall, pointed shell striped in brown and cream.
- Size
- Shell up to 20cm long
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- Forest edges, farms and gardens in East Africa: now spread around the tropics
Glides after you, very slowly. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Giant land snail
Good to know
Six things about the giant land snail
It eats almost anything
It is known to feed on more than five hundred kinds of plant. It will even rasp at paint and plaster for the lime.
Hundreds of eggs
Every snail is both male and female, and one can lay over a thousand eggs a year.
A runaway pest
Carried round the world as a pet and as food, it has become one of the worst crop pests in the tropics.
It can sleep for months
In dry weather it seals itself into its shell and waits, sometimes for most of a year.
Thousands of teeth
Its tongue is covered in thousands of tiny teeth, and works like a file.
The real thing
Photos of the giant land snail
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Look at night or after rain, on walls, tree trunks and garden plants. By day they hide under leaves and logs. Take an adult with you.
How to help
In its home it is just a snail. Elsewhere it is banned in many countries, and must never be let loose.
Keep going
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