Article from the British "Daily Telegraph" 25 Nov 98
 
"A tiny American snail was blamed yesterday for ruining one of France's
best-loved monuments by breeding too fast and excreeting too much.
The snail, ' Crepidula fornicata', was smuggled inadvertently into France
during the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944 on the bottoms of American
landing craft.
Scientists say the snail has accelerated the silting up of the shallow bay
around Mont St Michel.....which eventually may cease to be an island.
The snail has already coated about 15% of the bay's floor with a thick
layer of shells and slime.
According to a study by a group of French Academics the "snail silt"
consists of about 137,000 tons of living snails and about 77,000 tons of
dead ones.
The problem is all the trickier because "Crepidula fornicata" is a
hermaphrodite, which starts as a male, becomes a female with age and
reproduces by gathering together into ever bigger heaps.
The Mont St Michel snails, which excrete around 300,000 tons of slime each
year, are particularly difficult to dislodge because of the density of
their heaps: one square meter of sea-floor can contain as many as 10,000 of
the creatures...........etc.
 
Is this a 'leg pull' or really true!? American comments particularly
welcome!!
With Best Wishes
                           Dominic
Colchester, England
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Dominic Rawlingson Plant
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