A "baseball-sized" giant African snail A "baseball-sized" giant African snail that was found in Australia has been killed by country officials who say the animal posed a mammoth threat to local flora. "Giant African snails are one of the world's largest and most damaging land snails," Paul Nixon, acting regional manager at Australia's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, said in a statement, according to the Brisbane Times. "Australia’s strict biosecurity requirements and responsive system has so far kept these pests out of Australia and we want to keep it that way." According to Australia's ABC News, the large mollusk was recently found "crawling across the concrete at a Brisbane container yard." Seized and later identified as a giant African snail by entomologists, the animal has been "humanely destroyed" by biosecurity officers. Native to East Africa, giant African snails are considered by the