Giant African land snail

The giant African land snail is one of the largest snails that lives on land. A full-grown one can be around 20 centimetres long — longer than your hand — with a tall, brown-and-cream shell that spirals round and round. It carries this shell on its back and can tuck its soft body safely inside.

This snail is a plant-eater with a big appetite. It munches on leaves, fruit, vegetables, and flowers, and it will also nibble old, rotting plants. Young snails even eat a little soil to help build their shells strong. Most of the feeding happens at night, when the air is cool and damp.

Giant African land snails are famous for laying lots of eggs. A single snail can lay up to about a hundred eggs in its first year and even more in its second. Over its whole life, which can last up to about five years, one snail may lay close to a thousand eggs in total.

These snails first come from the warm lands of East Africa, in places like Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. People have carried them to many other countries, and in those new homes they can become a problem, eating farm crops and garden plants. It is not the snail’s fault — it is just doing what snails do — but it is why many countries ask people not to keep or move them.

Because it is such a common and widespread snail, it has not been given a conservation rating on the main list of threatened animals. In its faraway new homes it is often seen as a pest rather than an animal that needs protecting.