Nine-Inch Snails

(theatlantic.com)

37 points | by zdw 5 hours ago ago

17 comments

  • tambeb 2 hours ago
  • zem 3 hours ago

    I remember when those snails invaded bombay in the 80s. saw one or two, and then they were suddenly everywhere. it was amazing how fast it happened.

  • codedokode 2 hours ago

    Small snails look cute but 8-inch snail sounds a bit scary. Also how do they avoid being eaten by predators if they are slow and vulnerable?

    Also I recently saw small slugs which were crawling on the sidewalk along with worms who get to the surface after rain. I wonder what those slugs were planning to do given its middle of October and temperature is merely 10°C (50F)?

    • pixl97 an hour ago

      Some things eat them like opossum and foxes, but the snails spread bad parasites so animals might learn to avoid them.

      They can fertilize themselves so you only need one. And they lay 1600 or so eggs a year in batches of around 200.

      They are breeding machines.

    • PeterHolzwarth 2 hours ago

      "but 8-inch snail sounds a bit scary"

      Avoid Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.

  • karim79 2 hours ago

    My personal favourite parasite is the human botfly:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatobia_hominis

    This bastard is a fascinating one. I mean there are others, but this one is close to my heart.

  • ai_critic 3 hours ago

    > The snails, which actually grow to about eight inches in length, but can stretch—if nothing else, for headline-writing purposes—to nine inches, have worried Florida authorities since 1969.

    Delightfully self-aware.

  • soupfordummies 3 hours ago

    Excellent headline and graphic

    • zahlman 2 hours ago

      Closer (just give me a few hours to get there)

    • teeray 2 hours ago

      Terrible Slime

    • sublinear 3 hours ago

      my whole existence is flan

  • walrus01 2 hours ago

    We should get Trent Reznor's opinion on these.

  • giardini 2 hours ago

    paywall.

    • chihuahua 19 minutes ago

      One of the world's most 1EET H4X0R5, who hasn't left his parents' basement in 10 years and is rumored to be the operator of 5chan, told me that you can use archive.is to circumvent most paywalls, including that of The Atlantic.

      • ggm 12 minutes ago

        Or, and don't take my word for it, ask Abraham Lincoln, who told me to try "reader mode" in Firefox.

  • skipkey an hour ago

    The salt river northeast of Phoenix has been infested with apple snails from central america - they get up to 6" or so. The forest service regularly runs events where people in kayaks and on paddle boards help clear that section of river of the clumps of eggs.

    • ButlerianJihad an hour ago

      I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than two meters!