The snail can grow up to eight inches long, and can potentially carry the parasite rat lungworm, which may cause meningitis in humans and animals. The snail should not be handled without gloves because of the meningitis risk.
The snails can lay over 2,500 eggs in just one year, making the population difficult to contain. Florida has successfully eradicated the giant African land snail twice before, in 1975 and 2021.
I’m pretty sure African Land Snails are one of those animals that get imported as “pets” by rich idiots, and this is why they are in florida now.
Could also be eggs that hitched a ride on something else, but some people love mega-snails, so.
@Lowbird I suspect that it didn’t take that much money to get one of these as a pet, it was probably a bunch of middle class Florida men/women that this “genius” move.