4. Lissachatina fulica (Bowdich, 1822)

Distribution and year: 90 miles south of Nata, near Thalia village 1969 (GBIF 2023 b).

Native range: The coastal regions of East Africa (Fontanilla 2010), southern limit possibly being the Zambezi River (Herbert 2010).

Extent of invasion: The species became widely spread across the Indian ocean islands such as Madagascar and Mauritius during the 1800s (Fontanilla 2010). It later spread to India, Sri Lanka, Asia and into several Pacific islands, and gained ground in Europe and North America (Raut & Barker 2002).

Habitat: Terrestrial.

Notes: Introduction of the species to other regions of the world is presumed to be more deliberate than accidental (Raut & Barker 2002). This rapidly invading species, which covers a wide range expansion within a short period of time (Herbert 2010), acts as an intermediate host of the rat lungworm Angiostrongylus cantonensis that causes human eosinophilic meningitis (Fontanilla 2010), and is also infamously known as a crop pest in regions such as Ghana and mainland Kenya (Raut & Barker 2002). Lissachatina fulica can easily be mistaken for the indigenous L. immaculata (see Herbert 2010).

Type locality: Unknown (Bowdich 1822).

Source: GBIF (2023).