#DIADVENT2022 | Day 8

Slime trail of the year

A twenty centimeter snail? Hmmm - delicious! Garlic butter, herb butter, light brown stew - done. Yes, colleague H. has an emphatic culinary approach to all kinds of things and creatures. Snails are definitely one of them.

The dpa had previously dished up: "The slime trail of a 20-centimeter giant snail has led customs officials at Düsseldorf Airport to another 92 conspecifics. The customs officers had initially mistaken the enormously large snail for a toy - until it moved. 'Its trail led to a hole in a piece of luggage from Nigeria, from which the head of a second giant snail was already sticking out,' a customs spokesman said Friday in Düsseldorf." Sounds like rather moderate detective work. The main thing is that the ladies and gentlemen are happy about their coup: "Never before in the history of Düsseldorf Customs has a slime trail led us to smuggled goods. In that respect, this case is unique for us."

The slimy critters, which look like vineyard snails pumped up by a factor of ten and are considered a delicacy of wealthy classes in West Africa, are rather not rare. What the dpa doesn't know, others do: that they can live up to ten years and are fabulously voracious. In 1966, a family of three giant snails landed in Florida; in the end, there were 18,000 animals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture can't stand the snails, which eat more than 500 types of plants and, when they're too hungry, even eat the plaster off the walls.

Feeding them back could help. The preparation is a bit more complicated, because they are much meatier and tougher than snails. The live snails from the case were given to the animal rescue service of the city of Düsseldorf. Bon appétit.
- jW, 17.09.2022 / https://www.deepl.com/translator

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