Dear Wesley,
Many thanks for your information. Since I possess ofcourse the two Giant
African snail "bibles" by A.R. Mead, I am interested in data concerning
any more recent invasions, especially in areas with a non-tropical climate.
For the fossil record we are confined to Africa.
Although the Giant African snail is a well known pest of agriculture, it was
the introduction of all kinds of "natural" enemies" ranging from carnivorous
snails like Euglandina and Gonaxis to vertebrates like Mongooses
and the huge toad Bufo marinus, what caused havoc among the local
landsnails (and many other animal species!).
However, the combination of both the introduction of the Giant African snail
and its predators has upset everywhere the biodiversity.
Best regards, Henk K. Mienis.
----- Original Message -----
From: Wesley M. Thorsson <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2000 9:30 PM
Subject: Recent invasions of Achatina fulica


> If by recent, you mean non fossil:
> Hawaii some years ago had a bloom of A. fulica with them being common in
> almost everyone's yard.  I would pick up about 5 or 10 every few days an
> put them in the trash can.  Others did the same.  Burches had some for
> "pets", recording data of all kinds on them.  There was great alarm
> about the snails eating crops, and especially eating snails approaching
> extinction.  Euglandina were imported to kiss the fulica but wound up
> more of a threat to rare land snails than fulica.  In any event, after
> several years, the fulica naturally went into decline and since then you
> see one every once in a while.
>
> Earlier than that when we lived in Guam, fulica were extremely common.
> When I went out at night to put out trash for pickup, walking on the
> snails sounded like walking on crisp frozen snow.  They also went into
> decline, partly by a determined effort of many people to pick up as many
> as they saw.
>
> In Samoa, on several trips there, there were some seen each time.  They
> had a bloom of fulica in Samoa and decided to bring in euglandina to
> kill them against strong advice from many scientific sources that were
> very knowledgable about the problems with euglandina.  I didn't hear
> about the outcome fulica vs euglandina.  On my last trip to Samoa fulica
> weren't very prominent.  Our Samoa correspondent, Don Barclay can update
> this.
>
> It seems that fulica are quite widely spread in the Pacific Islands.  I
> have seen them on many islands, but not enough to cause local panic.
> Maybe Bruce Livett can comment on Australia.
> --
>                      Aloha from Wesley M. Thorsson
> Editor of Internet Hawaiian Shell News, a monthly Internet Publication
>            122 Waialeale St, Honolulu, HI  96825-2020,  U.S.A
>        http://www.hits.net/~hsn                 [log in to unmask]