--- title: "Florida has eradicated the giant African land snail three times and is still fighting it in two counties" url: https://badiyaa.com/giant-african-land-snail-florida-three-eradications/ published: 2026-11-02T23:03:00+00:00 modified: 2026-11-02T23:03:00+00:00 section: Pets & Animals publisher: Badiyaa --- # Florida has eradicated the giant African land snail three times and is still fighting it in two counties A Telugu YouTube Short with 128,000 likes asks how an 8-inch snail can scare a state; Florida's agriculture agency says the species eats 500 plants, lays 200 eggs a clutch and is under quarantine in Broward and Pasco. A snail the length of a dinner plate has now been wiped out of Florida three separate times, and the state is still fighting it in two more counties. That is the official record behind a Telugu-language YouTube Short from the creator @Limbadritalks, which asks whether an animal slower than an ant can frighten a whole state. The clip showed 128,000 likes when Badiyaa checked it on Monday, November 2, and its subject is the giant African land snail, *Lissachatina fulica*, which US authorities treat as one of the most damaging snails on the planet. ## Three wins, two open fronts Florida’s state agriculture department, FDACS, keeps the scorecard. The first snails turned up in 1969 and were gone by 1975. A second population was found in Miami-Dade County in 2011 and declared eradicated in 2021. A third, detected in Lee County in 2022, was declared eradicated in 2026 after more than three years without a live snail. The job is not finished. The department lists two active quarantine zones, in Broward and Pasco counties. Inside those lines it is illegal to move the snails or anything that might carry them, including plants, soil, yard waste, compost and building materials, without a compliance agreement. The department also notes a twist in the Pasco population. Earlier Florida snails had dark brown shells and grayish-brown flesh. The Pasco snails have milky white flesh, a form traders call “albino” and one that fetches more in the illegal pet trade, which is one reason the agency links new outbreaks to people keeping them as pets. ## Why one snail is a problem Three numbers explain the alarm. The department says the species eats at least 500 kinds of plants. An adult can reach 20 centimeters, roughly 8 inches, in length. And each snail is a hermaphrodite that lays around 200 eggs per clutch, five or six times a year, so a single animal carried into a new garden can found a colony. The appetite goes beyond leaves. The species has been recorded eating cardboard, trash and even stucco off walls, which is why Florida homeowners, not only farmers, end up on the front line. The official reason for the health warnings is the rat lungworm parasite, which the snails can carry and which the state cites as its public-health concern. The agency’s own guidance is blunt: do not handle them without gloves. The snail is also illegal to import or own anywhere in the United States without a federal permit. ## How it got everywhere Badiyaa traced the species’ spread through the published record, and the timeline is a map of global trade. Native to East Africa, it reached Mauritius before 1800, India by 1847, Sri Lanka by 1900, Singapore by the 1920s and Hawaii by 1936. Brazil recorded its first snails in 1988 and had them in 23 of 26 states by 2007. It is now the most frequently occurring invasive snail species in the world. One of the worst chapters came in the Pacific after World War II, when the US government released a carnivorous snail from Florida to control the invader. The newcomer ignored its target and ate the islands’ native *Partula* snails instead, driving most of those species to extinction within a decade. ## Is the clip accurate? The Short’s central claim holds up. Florida has repeatedly thrown years of effort at this one species, and the department’s own page confirms the detections, the eradications and the live quarantines. The creator’s framing of a snail “terrifying” a state is a stretch only in tone; the regulatory response it describes is real. One comment under the video, from a viewer who says they found one in a park and kept it for three years, is a reminder of how these outbreaks start. A snail that can store sperm for up to two years and self-fertilize in a pinch does not need a partner to become a population. For anyone in Florida, the department asks that suspected sightings be reported with a photo to its plant-industry helpline. The Broward and Pasco quarantines remain in force until the state logs the same three-year stretch with no live snails that closed the Lee County file in 2026. ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: Lissachatina fulica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissachatina_fulica) - [FDACS: Giant African Land Snail](https://www.fdacs.gov/Agriculture-Industry/Pests-and-Diseases/Plant-Pests-and-Diseases/Giant-African-Land-Snail) *Image: Scot Nelson, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*