- Wait until you see what I found.
Hopefully it's still there.
Oh, he's so big!
Honestly, this is the biggest snail I have ever handled.
I'm so excited my hand is shaking right now.
I'm telling you guys,
I've never been more excited to find a mollusc.
(upbeat drum music)
(animal roars)
During South Africa's dry season,
it's a rare thing for the rains to show up unannounced.
Yet low and behold,
if you arrive from Ohio,
the stormy spring weather,
has a tendency to follow.
On the first leg of our journey,
the crew and I lodged at the remote Tuinskloof Game Reserve.
A 13 hectare expanse of pristine wilderness
nestled in the Eastern Cape.
With heavy rains, come the emergence of life,
as creatures like termites,
take the wing with aspirations of pioneering new colonies.
From beneath the decomposing leaf fall,
millipedes seem to appear in droves.
From the saturated earth,
crawls a slimy being that we simply
had to get in front of the cameras.
(melancholy orchestra music)
Okay, you good? - Yep.
Come here, check this out.
All day, it has been raining,
and we thought we would not get an episode.
But low and behold!
A break in the clouds,
and wait and until you see what I found.
Hopefully, it's still there.
Oh, there he is I can see him from here.
Oh, he's so big!
Look at this.
Look, look, look.
Yes!
Do you know what that is?
- Looks like a giant snail. - It is.
- It is the giant African land snail.
I have never been more happy
to see a snail in my life, than I am right now,
because we have dealing with rain
all day.
We didn't think we'd get an episode.
Sure enough, there's a break in the weather,
I come out, I'm looking around.
Mario and I were actually filming termites
coming up out of their nests, they got flooded out.
I turn around, and what do I see?
This giant beauty. (thunder rumbles)
Oh boy.
- [Mark] I think we may not have that long.
- Yeah, we've got just a few minutes to film this episode.
But what I wanna do,
is gently pick this snail up,
and see if we can take a close look
at it's anatomy, you ready?
I'm gonna try to do this really gently,
so that I don't scare it.
- [Mark] Are you sure you're fast enough?
- Yeah, right?
One speedy
little mollusc. - Oh wow.
- [Mark] It didn't go into it's shell.
- Nope, that's because I was incredibly gently with it.
It does not feel scared right now.
Look at that creature.
Honestly, this is the biggest snail I have ever handled.
Now similar to slugs, they have a very interesting
design to their body.
Now separate from slugs, obviously they're carrying
their house on their back, which you can see
that shell, right there.
Such a cool looking shell, go ahead and zoom in on that.
Look at that unique design,
almost like the stripes of a tiger.
It's got that conical shape,
and it looks like it's kinda nubbed off on the end.
Sometimes they are pointy at the end.
Ooh, and he's just latched onto me right now.
Now most of the time, you think of snails
as being a creature that, as soon as it's disturbed,
it will suck its body into its shell to stay protected.
Of course, if I was trying to eat this snail,
that's what it would do.
But in this instance, because I picked it up gently,
and placed it on my hand, it feels completely comfortable.
Let's look at the face of this animal.
It's got those very distinct eye stalks,
and as we know, these creatures do not have good eyesight,
but what they can do is sense light in the environment.
Now, just underneath the front of those two little stalks,
it has a scratchy radula.
Ooh, and I can feel it on my finger right there,
and what they do, is they move that across the environment.
These are like little environmental vacuum cleaners,
moving about, cleaning up all of the dead debris.
Whether it's decomposing plants,
or even animal matter, it's fair game for these snails.
- [Mark] Man, we've been seeing their shells,
but this is the first one I've actually seen.
- Well what's interesting, is that when it rains,
it's pretty much the only time you're gonna see
a creature like this come out.
Right now, it is overcast and it is very wet.
Look at this soil.
This is mud that we are dealing with,
which is the perfect time,
bleh covered in it now,
for an animal like this to come out and move about.
- [Mario] If you were to put your hand upside down,
would it stick?
- Huh, good question, let's find out.
(whimsical violin music)
Yep.
Look at that.
Completely glued to my hand right there.
Wow.
He actually has some weight to it.
It probably weighs about a half a pound.
- Really? - Yeah.
Oh man.
- It's a lot heavier than you would think.
It's so cool, a mollusc like this out here,
in the desert terrain
of South Africa.
Again, the only time you're gonna see a creature like this,
is either at night, or after a large rain storm
has moved through.
Obviously, this creature's taking advantage
of all the moisture in the ground,
and all the wet plant life
that it can chomp up on.
I'm so excited, my hand is shaking right now.
I'm telling you guys, I've never been more excited
to find a mollusc.
This thing is crazy big.
But, believe it or not, they can get bigger than this.
Their shells can grow up to seven inches in length.
- [Mark] Whoa, man that's like twice the size of that one.
- [Coyote] Right, talk about being a giant snail.
- [Mark] So Mario, it's not uncommon to have
larger animals in Africa, why is everything so big?
- Yeah, he said big animals,
so I was thinking like elephant.
But, I guess it's the environment.
There's probably a lot of food, and a lot of nutrients
that these animals could get in order to get big.
- Yeah, cool. - Yeah.
- Look at it's skin, so bumpy,
almost looks like it would be rough and rugged,
like the skin of a rhino.
But, it's actually very slimy and sticky.
Mark, why don't you go ahead, put your finger in there,
tell the audience what it feels like.
- [Mark] Oh wow, it's not rough at all.
- [Coyote] No, slimy isn't it?
- [Mark] It's not even bumpy.
It's like, gooey.
- Like a booger.
Like a big, gushy booger.
- [Mark] Coyote, is its shell growing,
or is it going to find a new shell?
- No, that's a great question.
The shell is actually growing with the snail,
and it is attached on the inside.
So, unlike a hermit crab per say,
this creature cannot leave its shell and find a new one.
- [Mario] Ooh, is it leave a slime trail
on your hand? - No.
- Actually, that's a good question Mario.
What it is leaving, is technically called a snail trail.
Just a little layer of goo on my hand.
That actually helps them to mark their territory,
and it allows other snails to sense
when potential mates have gone through their environment.
- [Mark] I think the stripe down the back of it,
is so cool.
It actually like, looks a lot like its shell as well.
- [Coyote] Yeah, right there?
- [Mark] Yeah.
- I imagine that this helps
to blend it into the environment.
I mean, camouflage wise, this creature's
gonna wanna stay hidden.
Maybe saying to yourselves, Coyote that thing looks gross,
like a big, slimy booger,
what would possibly be eating this?
Birds, reptiles if they can get into the shell,
obviously something like,
you know, a hyena if it were to come across
something like this may think.
- Baboons. - Oh, baboons.
- I'm sure baboons would love to eat this.
Anything that would be able to get to the soft
insides of this creature's body
would turn it into a meal.
But fortunately, they are capable of sucking
their bodies in, and often times,
can stay protected from predators.
Now, let's take a look at the underside of the snail.
I'm gonna peel it off of my hand very slowly, here.
Ooh, that's sticky.
Look at that foot.
That foot is what's used for locomotion,
and it just very slowly move
throughout the environment.
As you can tell, these snails move very, very slowly.
That's such a cool
primordial creature.
Now similar to slugs,
most snails also have an external lung
called a neostone.
I can see that on this one.
But, it's very hard to identify.
It's right there.
Mark, see if you can zoom in on that.
I'm sure you're watching this episode,
and you're thinking to yourselves,
wow this certainly is a cool-looking snail.
But unfortunately, these creatures are invasive
in many areas, and they are detrimental
to agricultural crops.
They reproduce very easily,
and once you have thousands of these out there,
they can quickly wipe out an entire crop.
- [Mark] So Coyote, could you eat this snail?
- Oh, actually that's a great question
because some people do eat these snails.
However, you have to cook them.
If you eat one of these snails raw,
they sometimes can carry a nematode inside of their gut
that can actually cause meningitis.
- Oh, wow. - Yep.
- This snail specifically can make you really, really sick
if you ate it raw.
So if you were out there in a survival situation,
this is not something you'd wanna pick up
and just chomp down on, they have to be cooked.
- [Mark] So, you definitely wanna wash your hands
if you handle on, too.
- Yeah, considering the fact that I'm covered
in snail trail, a little soap and water
will get all that stickiness right off.
Well I'll tell you what,
on a day filled with rain,
when we didn't think an episode was gonna be possible,
we have a break in the weather,
and managed to find
the giant African snail.
I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave,
stay wild,
we'll see ya on the next adventure.
Alright big guy,
let's let you speed back off into the environment.
(light piano music)
When it comes to filming animals
for the Brave Wilderness Channel,
it's simple to see why working with giants gastropods,
makes getting epic shots rather easy.
Their slow nature, and calm demeanor,
makes them seem just as friendly as they truly are.
If you stumble upon one
of these slinking snails in your garden,
unfortunately they are likely eating your vegetables.
But feat not, when it comes to handling them.
If you can tolerate their sticky slime,
your encounter will be completely harmless,
and a little soapy water
will wash that slimy snail trail
right off.
If you thought getting slimed by a giant land snail
was a sticky mess,
make sure to go back and watch the episode
where my fingers were glued together,
by the bright yellow banana slug.
Don't forget, subscribe!
So you can join me and the crew on our next location.
What an awesome experience,
getting slimed by a banana slug.