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(CNN) -- Florida, already threatened with sinkholes, now has a new terror: rat-sized, tire-puncturing snails.
Sounding like something out of a 1950s B-movie, these giant African land snails eat their way through some surprising stuff, including stucco, plastic recycling bins, signs and more than 500 species of plants, says the Florida Department of Agriculture.
Their calcium shells bear pointy edges that are sharp enough to blow out tires of vehicles that run over them.
Agriculture Department spokeswoman Denise Feiber says the menacing creatures also carry a human parasite called rat lungworm, which is a form of meningitis and potentially deadly.