On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 18:40:06 +0100, "Sue & Bob Hobden"
wrote:


"Paul wrote in message

"Bill wrote in message ...
Come the rain, our snails have all woken up! :-((
I now have hundreds of the b*****s slithering around my garden gobbling
up all my prized plants. ((big snip)) and crossposted

Whilst on the subject of snails, today, whilst walking the North Downs
way
near Newlands Corner, we came across the biggest snail we have ever seen,
it
was huge, many times bigger than any garden snail we've seen.
No idea what species it was** but it must thankfully be rare, am I glad
we
don't get those on the allotment. :-)

**Perhaps someone on uk.rec.natural-history could enlighten us?

It sounds like an giant African land snail - they are popular pets.
Someone may have released it, perhaps?

But would one of those be able to stand the cold conditions?
It did look as if it had been around outside all it's life, shell worn and
scratched, not like a pampered pet snail.

Not too cold, no. They do OK at room temperature - 60ish, but are
better a little warmer. I expect one could survive a while in the kind
of weather we had recently. Having said that, I'm not really sure just
how much cold they could tolerate - I'm not going to try it with ours!

--
Paul

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Updated 19 April 03