Totally Random Giant Snail By My Door!

[FuzzyDragon09]

I cam home from work tonight and parked out front like I always do. As I walked up to the door I saw something on the brick landing. I bent down to look and it was a snail! :bs_quesexclaim:OMG! It's a giant snail! This thing is like 2 inches long. And it's still alive. I went inside to put my stuff down and to get my camera. I've never seen a snail this big before. The only ones I have ever seen in my yard are teeny tiny, dry, and empty shells. He probably came out because of the rain we had last night. He's kinda cute and he started moving around more when I picked him up. The pics are kinda bad because I can't manually focus on my camera. Anyone know what he is?

[Mzungu]

No, but that's pretty cool!!

[MexicanFish]

hmm.....snail soup

[Nickintex]

escargot?

[FuzzyDragon09]

Lol! I'm not going to eat him. He's cool looking! After the photo shoot I put him in the flower bed.

[myjohnson]

boil and eat!

dip in lime juice, salt, and pepper.

[Nickintex]

boil and eat!

dip in lime juice, salt, and pepper.

Stuff it in a portabella mushroom and cook it in garlic butter!

[FuzzyDragon09]

Aha! I think it's a Rosy Wolfsnail. I found a decription and shell picture here: Link. It's a list of Houston snails. This says that they are carnivorous and only eat other snails and will sometimes go underwater to eat pond snails. This means the flowers are safe. And they are generally active at night.

[peterp63]

Hmmm..... I wonder if he'd rid my tank of MTS????

[Nickintex]

Cool, a killer snail!

[FuzzyDragon09]

The link I posted says that they stick their mouth parts into the prey's shell and sometimes swallow the snails whole!

If you find one, you could experiment. Put some MTS into a container and add the wolfsnail. Then tell us how it went. I wouldn't put it directly into a tank because it could be carrying something. If it works we could breed them! They are hermaphroditic. So stick two in a terrarium with leaf litter and such. Throw in some MTS for food. They lay small, clear, pea-sized eggs. I don't know anything about raising snails but it would be a cool project.

[peterp63]

If I could quarantine it and knew it'd eat MTS I'd stick him in with my trophs anyday :) nice looking specimen!

[mahoro]

i been getting lots of apple snail-like snails outside my home, bout a bit bigger then cherry to golfball sized, they are yellow with black stripe...

[fishboyt]

I used to find these all the time in Louisiana.

[FuzzyDragon09]

i been getting lots of apple snail-like snails outside my home, bout a bit bigger then cherry to golfball sized, they are yellow with black stripe...

This one: a Pomacea paludosa LINK is the only native species of apple snail in the U.S. But it doesn't look like your description.

I think your snail is one of these two: A Pomacea insularum LINK 1 or a Pomacea canaliculata LINK 2. They are both invasive species from South America and they look really similar.