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African Giant Land Snail
Lissachatina fulica
10.7312, 122.532
Field Notes
Description:
According to Wikipedia - "The adult snail is around 7 cm (2.8 in) in diameter and 20 cm (7.9 in) or more in length, making it one of the largest of all extant land snails.[19]
The shell has a conical shape, being about twice as long as it is broad. Either clockwise (dextral) or counter-clockwise (sinistral) directions can be observed in the coiling of the shell, although the dextral cone is the more common. Shell colouration is highly variable, and dependent on diet. Typically, brown is the predominant colour and the shell is banded."
They can grow up to 20cm in length but I have yet to find a snail that's that big, largest one I've seen might be only around 12 centimeters in length
Habitat:
Found almost anywhere here in the Philippines where they are an invasive species. The ones spotted in the pics were mostly found in an agricultural area/shrubland.
Notes:
Hundreds of these empty snail shells were scattered all over the field in the nearby farm, most are dead but I managed to find some live ones too, they die out during harvest season/ dry season and the whiter the shell is the longer it had been dead and it starts to decompose. I think the empty shells may be a sort of liming agent for the next crops as their calcium made shells can help reduce the soil acidity? But they are still an invasive species and I'm not sure, but they probably feast on the vegetable crops. They are invasive.
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