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Cypress Plaza Business Center Lakes, Southeastern Duval County, Florida |
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As part of an on-going project to formally document the presence of
Pomacea paludosa (Say,
1829) [Florida Applesnail]
in northeast Florida, on September 27, 2005 an exploratory visit was made to
likely locations on Philips Highway in southeastern Duval County - an
area where the species has proven to be quite common. While driving in
the 8200 block, suspected Pomacea paludosa egg clutches were
spotted on a concrete bulkhead of one of three small interconnected
lakes adjacent to the Cypress Business Center in Cypress Plaza.An close-up investigation confirmed the presence of numerous egg clutches (including some freshly deposited) on man-made structure (bulkheads) in all three lakes. While the egg clutches were easily found, it took a thorough search to locate any actual Pomacea paludosa specimens. Eventually they were found in numbers mating on a bulkhead in a shady area immediately adjacent to Cypress Plaza Drive. Interestingly, six Pomacea paludosa from the lake that were examined were considerably larger than those found thus far in other nearby areas. The only other aquatic species found was the exotic Utterbackia imbecillis (Say, 1829) [Paper Pondshell] - a species that is very widely distributed in the county. During a follow-up visit on August 24, 2006, a single Pomacea egg clutch was found in a fourth Cypress Plaza complex lake (just to the east of the previously known populations) indicating that the snails are present there as well. Since all the lakes are interconnected via an underground culvert system, it appears likely that the snails entered the lake via that means. |
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[Click on the images below for a higher resolution version.] |
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Lake At Cypress Plaza |
Lake At Cypress Plaza |
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Lake At Cypress Plaza |
Mating Pairs Of Pomacea Paludosa From The Lake |
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