More than a dozen giant snails seized at Texas airport

Snails on a plane? U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed on Tuesday the discovery of 15 giant land snails in a woman’s luggage.

Capable of causing rare forms of meningitis in humans, the snails were confiscated at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas earlier this month.

According to several reports, the passenger who brought the giant land snails, also known as banana rasp snails, was traveling from Nigeria.

“She initially only declared that she had brought dried beef with her, but later added the snails to her declaration,” CBS News reporter Li Cohen quotes CBP as saying this week. “Agriculture specialists who were inspecting the passenger’s luggage in Houston then found three zip-locked plastic bags that had the live snails inside, along with fresh leaves and about 0.25 pounds of beef.”

Houston CBP port director Shawn Polley released a statement, underscoring efforts to “remain vigilant in protecting the U.S. from foreign animal and plant disease that could threaten U.S. crop production and livestock industry or be transmitted to humans.”

The USDA has now taken control of the snails seized at the Houston airport, describing them on their website as some of the “most damaging snails in the world.”

A banana rasp snail can grow to be almost 8 inches in length and 5 inches in diameter, about the size of an adult’s fist, the USDA says.

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