Slugs: a brief overview

by James K. Sayre

Also, check short essay on Kitchen Slugs at Kitchen Slugs

Slug body design:

The 1967 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica defines a slug "as any snail with the shell reduced to an internal plate, a series of granules or completely absent." Slugs are in the Gastropod class of the phylum Mollusca, are typically land animals and may live for several years.

Slugs are basically shaped like a fattened cigarette (or more like a hand-rolled joint). The central part of the slug body rests on top of the large muscular foot, which provides a slow but steady forward movement through a series of muscular contractions. The mucous trail (slime) excreted provides the slug with additional traction and protects its foot from injury as it moves over rough terrain (gently sing along, "Happy mucous trails to you until we meet again...").

Slugs have an excellent sense of smell (and presumably, also of taste) and a primitive visual function (they distinguish relative light and dark, but not colors). Their two primitive eyes are at the ends of their upper pair of small tentacles.

In colder climates, slugs hibernate during the winter months in their own mucous cocoon.

Slug food:

the food eaten by slugs includes many kinds of plants, algae, fungi, lichens, carrion, worms and insects.

Slug enemies:

Outdoors, in the natural world, slugs face many enemies including: ground beetles, birds, toads, frogs, spiders, snakes, small mammals and pathogens.

Slug sex and reproduction:

(Please note: you may not really want to know about this). Initially, as they grow up, slugs first develop male sex organs, and later, they develop their female sex organs. Also, they may go through phases of being exclusively male or exclusively female, depending upon the maturity of their ova and sperm. Each individual slug thus has both sexes built in (and so slugs are hermaphrodites) and may reproduce one-on-one and one-on-one with other slugs. (This gives new meaning to that old term, "double dating"). (Let traditional moralist ponder these sexual activities). Some species of slugs may engage in elaborate courtship dances (Virginia reels? the Bugaloo? or the Slide?).

Slug eggs and young:

Slugs may lay from several to several dozen small round-to-oval shaped eggs as often as every two months. The eggs are about a quarter inch in diameter and may be clear, white or yellowish in color. Slugs mature in from three to twelve months. They may live for about four years.

Slugs in the garden:

Slugs happily eat many tender young vegetable plants in gardens. Slugs typically forage for food at night.

Indoor slugs:

When slugs live indoors, such as in my old kitchen, they don't have to suffer the rigors and dangers of the great out-of-doors; their main problem, I suppose is to find enough food to eat. If they get really hungry, they can always retrace their slug-mucous trails and return to traditional alfresco dining.

Slugs to the rescue:

My old kitchen has a renovated counter top (not of my doing) that features large red-brick ceramic tiles with lines of grout between them. This is an extremely dysfunctional design, for the grout catches dirt, food particles and water runoff with ease. Whomever invented this kitchen counter top design was probably not the same person that was faced with the daily chore of trying to keep it clean. (what, pray tell, is wrong with Formica?) However, slugs to the rescue! Slugs, being scavengers at heart happily come visit their red-brick-tile-grout paradise in the midnight hour. They spend the whole night sniffing, tasting and eating whatever leftover food particles that their gourmet palates fancy.

You've heard of bird-watching and bird-feeding, what about slug-watching and slug-feeding?

So far, the slugs are quite indifferent to leftover apple cores, but they relish non-fat cottage cheese.

Slugs that live in California:

Great Slug, (Limax maximus) - up to 5" long. Found in northeastern United States, the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas and in coastal California. Originally from Europe and Asia Minor. Great slugs may mate while hanging together in midair from a branch or a leaf on a mucuous cord. (One doubts whether our 21st century celebs could top this performance...). Other names: Great Gray Garden Slug, Spotted Leopard Slug, Tiger Slug.

Field Gray Slug (Deroceras agreste) - to 2" long. variously colored gray, black, white, yellow, amber, brown and sometimes spotted or blotched with black.

Gray Garden Slug (Peroceris reticulatus) (Deroceras reticulatus) - up to 2" long.

Banded Slug (Limax marginatusi) -

Greenhouse Slug (Miliax gagates) - originally from Europe.

Tawny Slug (Limax flavus) -

California Banana Slug (Ariolimax californicus) - to 8" long - found in central California.

Slender Banana Slug (Ariolimax dolichophallus) - to 7" long - found in coastal central California

Banana Slug (Ariolimax columbianus) - to 8" long. (typically found in moist Redwood forests in coastal California).

European Black Slug (Arion afer) - to 6" long.

Orange-banded Arion (Arion fasciatus) - to 2" long.

Brown-banded Arion (Arion circumscriptus) - to 2" long.

Common Garden Slug (Arion distinctus) - to 1" long.

Garden Slug (Arion hortensis) - to 1.5" long. Originally from Europe.

Reticulated tail-dropper Slug (Prophysaon anndersoni) - to 2" long.

End.

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This web page was recently created by James Sayre.

Author's Email: sayresayre@yahoo.com

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Web page last updated on 17 April 2005.