Limicolaria flammea is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of tropical air-breathing land snail

Land snail

A land snail is any of the many species of snail that live on land, as opposed to those that live in salt water and fresh water. Land snails are terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells, It is not always an easy matter to say which species are terrestrial, because some are more or less...

, a terrestrial

Terrestrial animal

Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land , as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water , or amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats...

 pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Achatinidae

Achatinidae

Achatinidae is a family of medium to large sized tropical land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks from Africa...

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Distribution

This species is native to West Africa: Nigeria.

It was found as an introduced species in Tuas South, on the tropical island of Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, for the first time in 2006. The spread of Limicolaria flammea is potentially damaging to the multi‐billion dollar horticultural industry in Singapore. Malacologists have proposed the urgent eradication

Eradication

Eradication may also refer to:*Genocide, the deliberate, systematic destruction of an ethnic, religious or national group of people*Eradication of infectious diseases, the reduction of the global prevalence of an infectious disease in its human or animal host to zero*Intentional local extinction,...

 of this species in Singapore by handpicking; this is partly in order to prevent the spread of this species into the rest of tropical Asia based on the precautionary principle

Precautionary principle

The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those...

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Ecology

There is a paucity of information on the biology and ecology of Limicolaria flammea in the wild.

Oil palm and cocoa plantations are also mentioned as suitable habitat for Limicolaria flammea in Nigeria.

In laboratory conditions, the snails start laying eggs at 5 months old; clutches of up to 56 eggs are produced.

In laboratory experiments, Limicolaria flammea fed readily on potato, apple, lettuce, and carrot, and it is likely that the snails are unselective phytophagous, as has been reported for its congeners.

This species is probably predominantly nocturnal.