- 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.
