The carefully landscaped grounds of dozens of condominiums in the northern Venezuelan city of Lechería, on the Caribbean coast, are suffering an invasion of giant African land snails (Achatina fulica), which are now found throughout almost all of South America and on Caribbean islands like Barbados, Guadalupe, Martinique and Saint Lucia. The snails were first detected in parks in northwestern Venezuela in 1997. They reproduce quickly and are advancing at a rate of 100 kilometers a year in urban areas of the northeast. The city authorities in Lechería are planning to fight the spread of the snails by collecting and incinerating them.

"These snails can contain larvae that are vectors of eosinophilic meningitis, a serious nervous system disease, and can also be hosts to the parasite that causes angiostrongilosis, which obstructs the abdominal arteries,” Rafael Martínez, a professor of tropical zoology at the Central University of Venezuela, told Tierramérica.

Native to East Africa, the giant African land snail is considered a serious crop pest and can feed on at least 500 different plant species.