These are Apple Snails and they're friggin' HUGE! They're the size of, well, apples. That's big if you're only familiar with the tiny kind you see in aquariums. They're actually the biggest freshwater snails on earth, according to this web site. The site goes on to mention that they're a menace and that they escaped captivity in Taiwan and caused serious environmental havoc. AN ASIDE: How do you suppose they escaped? The web site doesn't say. I can't imagine that overpowering their captors or making a run for it would work.
At any rate, I think my apartment complex is about to have some Taiwan-esque problems, and I don't mean 22-year-old Little Leaguers. See those pink blobs that look like wads of bubble gum?
Those are Apple Snail eggs and they're all over the pond in the middle of my complex. The nearby city of Lakeland has been dealing with the problem for years now. Presumably, Lakeland has more resources at their disposal to deal with this kind of situation (groundskeepers, environmental experts, troops, etc.) than my apartment complex does (I know they have a golf cart) so I might be in danger here. Fortunately, I live on the second floor and I'm pretty sure I'll see them coming long before they pose a real threat to life and limb. Even if they did manage to make it all the way upstairs somehow, I'll just pick them up one at a time and fungo their asses right off my porch and back into the pond. Still, they did take over Taiwan...
Hmmm my brother lives in Taiwan and I believe he's visited Florida on one of his jaunts to the States. He bugs me a lot (he's the oldest). So, we can entertain the theory that it was he who "imported" them to the US
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