Not all creatures are suitable as pets; be careful as they can cause irreversible losses.
As people's living standards improve and the pursuit of novelty stimulates them, many youngsters enjoy keeping some rare and unique creatures as pets. The rare and precious cat and dog breeds can no longer satisfy the pursuit of pet lovers, so spiders, snakes, mantis, ants, snails, snails, hamsters and other peculiar creatures have entered people's vision. Among them, snails are the favorite of many children, easy to raise and won't run around. However, not all snail varieties are suitable for pet breeding. Today, we'd like to introduce a snail that was once kept as a pet, African Giant Snailwhich eventually brought disaster to a region.
The African Giant Snail is the largest snail in the world, with an average size of 7-8 cm, and the largest ones can grow to be about the size of a rabbit. It is vastly different from the small and cute snails we often see in daily life. However, this snail is prohibited from entering the United States. Don't underestimate this giant snail, it is one of the most terrifying snails in tropical and subtropical regions internationally. It is an omnivorous creature, and it loves various crops, fruits, and flowers. When hungry, it will swallow paper and its companions, even chewing and digesting cement to destroy buildings. At the same time, it is a very aggressive invasive species. Whenever it enters a new area, it will start to eat a lot of local plants and drive away the snails in the area, thereby changing the local food chain and ecosystem.
The African Giant Snail was only distributed in Africa two hundred years ago, but by the 19th century, it began to invade the whole world. The reasons include the love of eating snails in some countries, and its huge and cute appearance also attracted many people to bring it home as a pet. The United States is one of the victims. In 1996, because of a child who wanted to keep this African giant snail as a pet, it brought 3 African giant snails back to Miami from Hawaii, and it didn't take seven years for them to become about 20,000 in size, eventually evolving into a huge population of over 10 million African giant snails invading all of Florida in the United States, severely damaging crops, changing the food chain and ecosystem, and many homes were seriously eroded. The local government spends millions of dollars each year to deal with them, but with little effect. Each female snail can lay 1200 eggs a year, and after the rainy season, their population will grow explosively, almost no country can completely suppress this biological creature with amazing reproductive ability.
In addition, the African Giant Snail is a host of parasites and pathogens, with great harm to consumption, especially tuberculosis and psuedomonas aeruginosa can pose a threat to humans, so youngsters should not be deceived by its cute and adorable appearance.
