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Science

100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species 93

Posted by michael from the face-huggers-not-counted dept.
Ant writes "100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species list says: 'Invasive species have been recognised globally as a major threat to biodiversity (the collected wealth of the world's species of plants, animals and other organisms) as well as to agriculture and other human interests. It is very difficult to choose 100 invasive species, from around the world, that really are "worse" than any others. Species and their interactions with ecosystems are very complex. Some species may have invaded only a restricted region, but have a huge probability of expanding, and causing further great damage (e.g. see Boiga irregularis: the brown tree snake). Other species may already be globally widespread, and causing cumulative but less visible damage. Many biological families or genera contain large numbers of invasive species, often with similar impacts; in these cases one representative species was chosen. The one hundred species aim to collectively illustrate the range of impacts caused by biological invasion.'"
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100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species More

100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species

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  • It seems we would be on top of the list. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HerbanLegend ( 758842 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @11:04PM (#10447610) Homepage
    C'mon, Humans have got to rank someplace on that list.

    First Post!

    • Re:It seems we would be on top of the list. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      C'mon, Humans have got to rank someplace on that list.

      Some place?! Not only should we be #1 on that list, we are the ones responsible for everything on that list being there. It's not like they all decided to be invasive and just hopped on an airplane.

      • right because no time in the history of the planet has one species moved from one area to another. in no time in the history of the planet has one species out competed and destroyed another. change is always bad and never brings anything good. nature is entirely communist and animals and rocks live together in spirtual harmany working together for the good of the whole.

        its called evolution and survival of the fittest. the only good reason to have a list like this is if these are pests messing with the

        • Re:It seems we would be on top of the list. (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Example of natural evolution of species introduced to areas where they weren't native (a good thing): the Galapagos Islands.

          Example of human fuckery (a bad thing): Kudzu [ua.edu].

          Read up on both and tell me that the latter is a simple matter of "survival of the fittest".

          • well i've never heard of kudzu before and i don't live in the south. but i read your link and actually this is exactly what i'm talking about. i see kudzu vines kill trees, but there are good things that have resulted from it as well.

            positive things your article mentions:

            -- it has sweet smelling blossoms so people planted it because they liked it
            -- during the great depression the soil conservation service used kudzu for erosion control.
            -- people have "raised Angora goats in fields of kudzu which would o
        • its called evolution and survival of the fittest. the only good reason to have a list like this is if these are pests messing with the economy. otherwise who cares?

          True enough, I'm not one of those who thinks that the world needs to be locked in stasis. Nature evolves constantly and it's changing now in response to us. Sadly, many people seem to think that they somehow exist outside "nature" just because they can't see it out the window of their SUV. Does it really matter if it's one species of Lady-bu

          • What people seem to forget is that although we are good at adapting, the new state of things may require a far smaller population. Humans have always played with ecological fire, so to speak. Sometimes we get burnt badly. I think that eventually we will stuff up and get a mighty kick up the arse from nature, we'll probably survive as a species but that doesn't mean things will be pleasant.

        • right because no time in the history of the planet has one species moved from one area to another.

          Pre-historically this would occur much slower, so native species would evolve to compete with the invaders.

          the only good reason to have a list like this is if these are pests messing with the economy. otherwise who cares?

          I care. I care because I battle those d---ed tiger mosquitos regularly. Also, if you look at the list, many of them are economically harmful.
        • Your comment is at bottom true, but also pretty stupid.
          • Pretty often, we're trading in some pretty nice species and habitat, say an entire continent of elm trees, for some pretty 'nothing' replacement, like a bug or a fungus.
          • "Invasive" essentially means fast. Some species ruins the living conditions for another too fast for the second to adapt to it. Thus,
          • the crappy species takes over in a time measured in years, in a single person's memory, while the adaptation and comeback takes centuries, in a
          • Pretty often, we're trading in some pretty nice species and habitat, say an entire continent of elm trees, for some pretty 'nothing' replacement, like a bug or a fungus.

            i agree that dutch elm was terrible. it destroyed a whole industry. my point is that its not like "nature" is worse off because of it. (after all we may have lost the elm tree but we got kudzu from japan.) this kind of thing happens in nature naturally all the time.

            what if the invasive species is a human parasite

            are you accusing me
      • The list appears to be alphabetical. Homo Sapiens should be under H.
      • Bu think: if we didn't exist, there'd be no one around to decide if species were invasive or not. If the Burrowing Snagret encroaches upon the territory of the Spotty Bulborb through artificial means it's bad, but over tens of thousands of years it may have happened anyway. (Then again, it may not have, or it may have been very difficult if they had an ocean to cross.)

        Species have invaded the ranges of others many, many times during the history of life on Earth. What humans are guilty of isn't allowing
    • "C'mon, Humans have got to rank someplace on that list."

      We're not alien, everything else is!
    • 1. Humans
      2. Starbucks
      3. Talk Shows
      4. Neoconservatives
      5. "Alternative" Bands
      6. Cell-Phone-Talking SUV Drivers
    • Best 'First Post' I ever saw.

  • Interesting list... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stienman ( 51024 ) <.adavis. .at. .ubasics.com.> on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @11:05PM (#10447615) Homepage Journal
    Apparently #38 is the common cat. I hadn't thought of cats as invasive, but I'm surprised that it's considered so invasive. I imagine they are so high on the list because of their numbers, and few people think of them in this way.

    -Adam

    • Re:Interesting list... (Score:5, Informative)

      by TheDayOfMe ( 808363 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @11:51PM (#10447831)
      For places where cats are not normal, like Australia and other islands, cats have caused a huge amount of damage to the native fauna. Cats are wiping out small animals and birds, either through predation or through competition.

    • Re:Interesting list... (Score:2, Informative)

      by onya ( 125844 )
      > Apparently #38 is the common cat. I hadn't thought of cats as invasive, but I'm surprised that it's considered so invasive.
      >I imagine they are so high on the list because of their numbers, and few people think of them in this way.

      no, it's because when they go feral they kill fucking everything.

      You obviously read the article, but didn't go to the effort of trying to comprehend the explanatory paragraph.
    • I imagine they are so high on the list because of their numbers, and few people think of them in this way.

      Either that or, perhaps, just perhaps, being the single greatest natural hunters of thier size plays some small part.
    • "Apparently #38 is the common cat. I hadn't thought of cats as invasive..."

      Ever have a cat in a small apartment? Mine's been trying to crack my password for 4 years now! (Fortuantely he thinks it's 255 characters long.)
      • Hopefully it won't occur to him that you use a urine-based biometric reader.

        Back in the day (c. 1987) a friend (Jenny) was working on another friend's (Bill) computer writing her paper. Bill had cats named Jeremy and Silver. While Jenny was writing the paper in WordStar, Silver walked across the keyboard and managed to close the program without saving, which if I recall was Ctrl-K, X with maybe an N necessary to answer "Do you want your cat to destroy your work?"

        Being the good old DOS days however, Bil
        • Re-elect George W Bush... because nothing is more entertaining than an angry liberal.

          Wouldn't that reason make more sense voting for Kerry? What with the House and Senate presumably remaining in Republican hands, he would be a frustrated president much of the time.
    • I imagine they are so high on the list because of their numbers, and few people think of them in this way.

      Silly me, I thought the list was alphabetically sorted. What a coincidence!! :)
    • Remember that the list is merely in alphabetical order .. hence it's placing ..
    • I expect part of the reason #38 (the common cat) is on the list is because #58 (the common mouse) is on the list. I know that's why I keep my cat. He catches everything from mice to moles to birds to rabbits nearly as big as he is. I guess that's the problem, cats are great hunters, which is a good thing, but I could see how they could be a problem in certain places. I don't plan on getting rid of my cat anytime soon. Besides, he's neutered.

      Another one that struck me funny was #17, goats. We use goat
      • Bill Grogan's goat wasn't feeling fine
        Ate 3 red shirts right off the line
        Bill took a stick, gave him a whack,
        And tied him to the railroad track.

        The whistle blew, the train grew nigh.
        Bill Grogan's goat was doomed to die.
        He gave three groans, three groans of pain
        Coughed up the shirts and flagged the train!
  • the Jackson family! the worst offender in this species seems to have an affinity for places where the sun does not shine, especially on prepubescent boys.

  • Terror in Maryland (Score:2, Interesting)

    by wildzeke ( 191754 )
    What, no snakeheads on this list?

  • I for one (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    welcome our new invasive alien overlords.

  • #63: Rainbow Trout? (Score:3, Funny)

    by neitzsche ( 520188 ) * on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @11:42PM (#10447782) Journal
    So will they remove all limits on Rainbow Trout now? :-)

    That would be nice...

    • So will they remove all limits on Rainbow Trout now?

      Reminds me of a recent story about flathead catfish:

      Alien Catfish Species Found in N.J. Canal

      An alien species of catfish has been caught in the Delaware Raritan Canal, prompting fears among environmental officials that the voracious predator could devastate native catfish, sunfish and some sturgeon populations the way it has in southeastern states.

      http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20040825_2416.html [go.com]

      As long as it tastes better than the species it

  • What about... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What about those face huggers from Aliens [vgcats.com]?

  • Forgot one (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Polo ( 30659 ) * on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @11:48PM (#10447819) Homepage
    I would say:

    1) Homo Sapiens [wikipedia.org]

    To quote the entry: "few single species occupy as many diverse environments as humans"
    • Don't worry, my team are working on something that should fix that problem in short order.

    • Re:Forgot one (Score:5, Informative)

      by eviljav ( 68734 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @11:56PM (#10447856)
      Nah, homosapiens should have been #43... The list is alphabetical.

    • Re:Forgot one (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kippy ( 416183 )
      This is something to be proud of, not bemoan.

      It always pisses me off when people live in some fantasyland where "nature" is always in perfect harmony and humans no nothing but upset it.

      Extinctions, invasions and wild changes in the biosphere are intrinsic in nature. Humans are not somehow "outside of it". We are part of it and there is no valid ethical argument saying we should not strive to survive just like every other lifeform out there.

      This may not have been the intent of the parent post but I've h
      • I agree with the statement "we should not strive to survive just like every other lifeform out there" however much of what humans do is not done for survival. Hunting animals into near extinction for ivory and furs is not done for survival, it's done because greed. Dumping crap into the ocean is not done for survival, it's done because its a quick and easy "harmless" solution to the immediate problem of having some crap to dispose of. So many actions which harm the environment are done for such shortsigh
        • I'm not arguing for rampant pollution or hunting to extinction for pleasure. It's common for people to take an all or nothing stance on this. green nuts are luddites who would have us give up farming and electricity if their ideals were taken to their logical conclusion. Polluters who take the shortsighted way out of problems are harming the human race.

          Humans need to look out for humans. part of that is interacting and engineering the environment to suit us. poisoning water and crippling biospheres ar

      • It always pisses me off when people live in some fantasyland where "nature" is always in perfect harmony and humans no nothing but upset it.

        And it always pisses me off that the same people who make this argument use it to justify human greed-induced environmental degradation.
        Every time someone points out that we're crapping in our own nest someone else trots this line out to make the claim that we have the right because we're products of nature ourselves. It's a two-faced argument because we do everyth
        • Nature prescribes no bounds aside from the laws of physics. The fact that we as a species produce waste and use technology is neither unique nor immoral.

          If you read what I wrote, I'm not an advocate of "crapping in our own nest". Doing something that hurts the survival of the human species is immoral. Killing other people and disrupting an ecosystem to the point where human life is negatively impacted both count as immoral in my book.

          I fail to see how you make the logical step from "we live in houses,

          • Nature prescribes no bounds aside from the laws of physics.

            Perhaps I should be more specific...Earth's natural ecosystem proscribes boundaries that we thumb our noses at when we choose to use massive quantities of resources to achieve some kind of imaginary utopia of technological isolation from the limits of our physical existence.

            Every known living thing consumes energy and produces waste.
            Only as necessary for its survival.
            The fact that we do too is not inherently immoral. The degree to which

  • the worst are (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Americans

  • Why aren't... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Trikenstein ( 571493 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @12:55AM (#10448087)
    Cthulhu and the other elder gods listed?
    It might be millions years between incursions, but the effect they have on the biosphere is pretty dramatic.
    Mass extinctions, tectonic plate shifts, pole shifts, axis shifts, etc, etc, etc.
  • I have to concur with what others have said: homo sapiens should be on that list.

    Let me put it this way: If humans had not been around, how many of the species on that list would still be invasive?

    ~UP
  • No3 is the lovely myna bird. Rattus rattus us down at 80, near the brown trout. Seems like a strange list to me...
    • It's alphabetical by formal specise name, which is why Acridotheres tristis is number 3, and Rattus rattus is near Salmo trutta!

      Loveliness != good for the environment!
      • Seems alphabetical except for number 100.

        Strange.

      • Re:myna bird? (Score:2, Informative)

        by jginspace ( 678908 )
        It's alphabetical by formal specise name, which is why Acridotheres tristis is number 3, and Rattus rattus is near Salmo trutta!

        Wow! There are no flies on you are there? (are flies on the list?) Why didn't they say that? All they say by way of methodology is "It is very difficult to choose 100 invasive species, from around the world, ... The one hundred species aim to collectively illustrate the range of impacts caused by biological invasion."

        Loveliness != good for the environment!

        The indictment htt [issg.org]
  • Of the problem species, are trees really that big of a problem? It seems like they'd be by far the easiest to eradicate as they multiply slowly, don't move real fast, and can be killed quite easily with a cheap chainsaw.

    I granted don't know much about invasive species, but this list seems a bit odd in its priorities.

    • Re:Trees are invasive? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by torpor ( 458 )
      What does 'invasive' mean? It means its in an area where it doesn't 'naturally belong', in this context, and 'is doing damage'.

      The point is, tree's are exceptionally good at biological warfare. A non-native tree in a distant land, with no competitors, can utterly decimate local species.

      Sorta like Americans in Baghdad, but I digress..
    • For some trees there are longer lasting effects that will linger even after the trees have been cut down. Eucalyptus for example drops sap into the soil surrounding it that acts as a herbicide to other plants. Thus, even after a Eucalyptus grove have been cut down, it will be many years before other species can flourish.

      Also, i would imagine that the point is not "most invasive species that we cannot handle." Rather, which species (left to their own) are the most effective at invading a new area and dom

    • Oh yes. (Score:4, Informative)

      by pavon ( 30274 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @10:47AM (#10451095)
      There are probably two ways of judging how bad an invasive species is: the negative effects on other "native" species and ecology, and how hard it is to eradicate. As an example lets look at the salt cedar [wa.gov], which is bad on both of these counts.

      This plant is a huge success of natural selection. It can survive in all sorts of environments, and scales wonderfully eeking a survival in the middle of the desert as a shrub or thrive in wet forest as a tree, but always leeching every and all the resources available to it. It has an extensive root system which soaks up all the water available, which not only chokes off local trees, but prevents ground water from replenishing streams and aquifers, hurting the ecology of the entire region. It is near worthless as a source of food for animals, unlike the plants which it displaces.

      Getting rid of it is not quite as easy as using a chainsaw. As I mentioned, it has an extensive root system which survives and resprouts after the above-ground portion of the plant has been cut down. The salt ceder also salinates the soil, making harder for other plants to regrow if the infestation has been there a long time before removal. Most places resort to pesticide to get rid of it, either by spraying areas that are completely infested, or by poisoning the trunks of individual trees that have been cut down. Also, "just chainsawing it", is not as easy as it sounds. It is an extremely time consuming task. Likewise, pesticides are not something that you want to go overboard with. In general these trees have been spreading over decades and we are just now getting around to dealing with them, so you don't want to just rip out all the salt cedars as fast as possible without a plan for reintroducing native plants.

      Here in New Mexico, the salt cedar is concidered to be one of the greatest threats to our water supply, and a great deal of effort is being made to eradicate it, and progress is being made, but it is necisarrily slow.

      • There are probably two ways of judging how bad an invasive species is: the negative effects on other "native" species and ecology, and how hard it is to eradicate. As an example lets look at the salt cedar , which is bad on both of these counts.

        Here in Colorado the salt cedar is widely known as tamarisk, and its principle impact is its effect on the water supply. Tamarisk along rivers and streams uses enormously more water than the native species it displaces. The best estimates are that the increas

  • And here's another one (Score:3, Informative)

    by alanw ( 1822 ) * <alan@wylie.me.uk> on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @01:39AM (#10448250) Homepage
    Reported only yesterday, a ladybird being sold around the world for pest control may out-compete
    native ladybirds, and eat the eggs of butterflies
    and lacewings.

    They also blemish soft fruits and their acrid defensive chemicals taint wines.

    Harmonia axyridis - the Harlequin Ladybird
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/3715120.s tm [bbc.co.uk]
  • Bastard things eat everything. We (the people of New Zealand) spend *so* much money trapping and killing possums each year. The sad part is that they were deliberately introduced to stimulate a possum fur industry.

    Same country has just removed its' moratorium on genetically engineered crops - it seems we, as a nation, will never bloody learn.

    Dave

    • I echo your frustrations, Dave. It's frustrating to watch your country (in my case, the USA) dive head first into something as potentially catastropic as genetic engineering without much resistance from our elected officials.

      The smell of money sure intoxicates the body politic, doesn't it? Man, it's frustrating.

      • there should be a new moderator option: Reduntant fear mongering

        Yeah, genetical engineering is so dangerous. We have only 2000 years of expierince with it and see what catastrophes happened because of it. Thank your fucking deity that you life in a part of the world where planting, raising and harvesting food crops is the easiest thing to do.

        • Re:#93, possums (Score:2, Insightful)

          by baldinux ( 814742 )

          It seems I've touched on a volatile issue here. Please consider this elaboration. Hopefully it will show you that I do consider my thoughts carefully.

          With every technological innovation there are consequences. Coal power produced pollution the likes of which had never been seen before; the proliferation of the automobile has contributed greatly to increased greenhouse emissions; and genetically modified foods have been met with great skepticism is most industrialized nations ... America being a noteworthy

          • Yeah, volatile indeed. The problem is not one of astethics. It's a matter of life and death. Agriculture has changed the enviroment (I do not feel in the position to claim 'damaged') but change it self isn't bad. It happens all the time in nature. Btw, this is a great beef I take with the original article about alien species. Who is to say what is etnernally 'good for nature' and 'bad for nature'? Anyways, nature isn't paradise. Nature does not 'provide' for us on it's own. Our technology enables us to live
    • Yeah I think it's stupid for NZ to allow genetic engineering stuff on their soil.

      Agriculture plays a major role in NZ's economy. And "New Zealand" is an established "brand" recognized for being clean/unspoiled/uncontaminated. Turning away US nuclear power ships and all that.

      If you guys remain GM free, then _when_ (not if) someone in the rest of the world screws up, you guys stand to make a big profit.

      Look at the state of "British Beef". They're going nowhere. . The only beef I'd think is 99.99% safe to e
    • Possum fur?

      An adult possum is one of the ugliest creatures in creation. A possum-fur coat would only feel at home on the shoulders of Mad Max. Whose idea was it to breed them for fur?

  • The trouble with species introduction (Score:3, Insightful)

    by baldinux ( 814742 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @02:30AM (#10448399) Homepage Journal

    Great article. Thanks Ant.

    Introduced species brought in to stimulate this (profit) or eradicate that ("pests"), have brought about consequences to our generation and those after us, the obvious one being the trampling and eradication of native species that have adapted to their particular region over many generations -- key players in that area's natural system. These are being dominated by "foreigners" -- many of which have made the list -- often with consequences that may not be discovered for many years.

    I have family in Hawai'i, and anyone who's flown to or from Honolulu Int'l knows how strict the authorities are there. Fragile, geologically young, natural systems are especially at risk for species introduction, as evidenced by the mongoose (brought in to eradicate another species), as one example. The mongoose has seriously threatened the native bird populations on Oahu and many neighbor islands.

    It's fun to tackle serious issues with a touch of humor. Make no mistake, though. This is a very serious issue that is being taken very seriously, especially by those fragile island regions most threatened by these invasions, and even by geologically older regions dealing with invasive ivys and other (introduced) pests that cost money to deal with.

  • Greys! (Score:3, Funny)

    by WoodenRobot ( 726910 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @05:01AM (#10448818) Homepage
    Number 1 on the list is a tree. A goddamn tree! But where's those bug eyed greys on the list? They're not on there, are they? I smell a coverup! I don't think a tree's ever given anyone an anal probe (but then again, I'm not a botanist).

    • Re:Greys! (Score:2, Informative)

      by delta_avi_delta ( 813412 )
      I've seen some forrests completely destroyed by rhododendrons. Invasive plants are possibly more damaging than invasive animals, in that they change the ecosystem at its very base.
  • Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.

    Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?

    Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.

    Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?

    Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.

    Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!

    Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

  • I know we sure have a problem with star thistle in CA. Our state even has it's own "Encycloweedia [ca.gov]"

    California Native Plant Society [cnps.org] has a pretty good list of weed sites as well. I never knew how much you see growing in the countryside was a product of an invasion.
  • Don't get bent out of shape over the fact that zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) or rats (Rattus rattus) are "ranked" below seaweed (Caulerpa taxifolia), despite the fact that seaweed is benign compared to them.

    You should take issue with the people who invented the alphabet, since they're the ones who put 'c' before 'd' and 'r'.

  • (1) Borg

    (2) Martians

    (3) Aliens

    (4) Body Snatchers

    (5) Kang & Kodos

    (6) Marvin the Martian

    (7) Mechagodzilla

    (8) Silastic Armorfiends

    (9) Young Republicans

    (10) Brain Leeches of Carotene Beta

  • List is alphabetical (Score:4, Informative)

    by milgr ( 726027 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @01:03PM (#10452630)
    For all those who complain that #1 is a tree, the list appears to be alphabetically ordered.

  • Shortsighted humans... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by reverseengineer ( 580922 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @01:57PM (#10453051)
    I love the "invasive alien species" which were deliberately introduced to a foreign environment by humans in order to control a pest (often another invasive alien species) and of course themselves became pests- I think much of that has been due to poor understanding of predator-prey relationships within the larger framework of an ecosystem.

    When you release beetles to consume aphids, for instance, it is a bad assumption to think that the beetles will take care of the aphid problem, and then having exhausted their food source, will then simply die off or dwindle to an acceptable-to-humans number- more likely, they'll choose alternate food sources, which may include things humans did not intend for them to eat. I'm certainly not the sort to suggest that all human modification of the environment is awful and we must leave all of nature pristine- for one thing, it's not as though animals and plants themselves leave nature unspoiled. Also, in certain cases like food crops and game animals, invasive species have been extremely beneficial to humans. While they might have made the list here, I think many humans are perfectly fine with lakes and rivers brimming with largemouth bass and trout. In the same way, while "invasive," and sometimes even destructive, few humans would put the domestic cat on the same level of infamy as Dutch elm disease, kudzu, or fire ants- in fact, they've traditionally been valued for controlling populations of two of the other members on the list. But, we must remember that animals and plants are not machines that can be operated to do the will of humanity- however much we may think ourselves their masters, at a higher level they obey their genes. And their genes want them to reproduce without limit.

    On the subject of deliberately introduced invasive species, this entry sounds like a truly amazing creature:
    The predatory "rosy wolf snail" (also known as the "cannibal snail") is native to the south-eastern United States, especially Florida. It has been introduced to islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, also to Bermuda and the Bahamas, as a putative biological control agent for another alien species, the giant African snail (Achatina fulica). There is no good evidence that control of A. fulica has been effected, but E. rosea has caused the extinction of numerous endemic partulid tree snails in French Polynesia and has been heavily implicated in the extinction or at least decline of other species of snails wherever it has been introduced, notably in Hawaii. Common Names: cannibal snail, Rosige Wolfsschnecke, rosy wolf snail

    I mean, I just would like to see this thing in action- you tend to think of most predatory animals as made for pursuit, capable of bursts of speed to chase down prey. Then you have this snail....

  • Rattus rattus (mammal)
    A native of the Indian sub-continent, this rat has now spread throughout the world. It will feed on and damage almost any edible thing. Ship rats are widespread in forest and woodlands as well as being able to live in and around buildings. A very agile rat, it often frequents the tree tops searching for food and nesting there in bunches of leaves and twigs.
    Common Names: Black rat, black rat, blue rat, bush rat, European house rat, Hausratte, roof rat, ship rat

    Common, Rattus

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