Talking about Fast Slugs. . . Meet the Great Gray Slug of Europe
I was searching the 'net for information about slugs, and found out that apparently the slug my children were holding the other day, the one I said was "fast," is a European Black Slug. That day, after setting him down, he slid away and hid in the grass in about a minute and a half, and I had thought that seemed fast for a slug, faster than I had seen one travel before at least.
It seems that another slug in the Pacific Northwest called the Great Gray Slug of Europe can actually go a lot faster than our slug was traveling at that day. According to the E-Fauna BC website, the Great Grey Slug of Europe can perhaps go 6 inches in a minute! Can you imagine?! That's one fast slug.
Around the area where we live we usually see mostly European Black Slugs, but yesterday we saw a Great Grey Slug. It's cool because it has spots on it.
My older son found it yesterday and rescued it from a puddle. As he was checking out a puddle (it rained a ton the night before), he picked of a glop of mud and then all of a sudden he was startled when he saw inside the mud was this creature!! And reflexively he dropped it back in the water.
Feeling hesitant about sticking his hands in the puddle and possibly picking up (what could have been) a dead slug, first he tried to pick some of the mud up with a stick to get the slug out, but that didn't work. So then he decided he would have to stick his hands back in and pick. . . up. . . the (slimy!!) slug. He reached in, and lifted it out, and was happy to see that it was alive because he noticed that the little hole slugs breathe through was still opening and closing. Then he brought if over and showed me.
We weren't sure if it would make it because we wondered how it would live after being at the bottom of a full puddle.
Here is a picture of it after it was taken out of the puddle. My son is holding it. The picture was taken at 2:18 pm:
Here is a picture of it after it he laid it down beside the puddle (you can see a small part of the puddle up in the upper right hand corner of the picture). It was taken at 2:20 pm:
About an hour later my son went out to check on it, and it was looking really good and it was crawling. This picture was taken at 3:22 pm:
Taken at 3:32 pm:
It seems that another slug in the Pacific Northwest called the Great Gray Slug of Europe can actually go a lot faster than our slug was traveling at that day. According to the E-Fauna BC website, the Great Grey Slug of Europe can perhaps go 6 inches in a minute! Can you imagine?! That's one fast slug.
Around the area where we live we usually see mostly European Black Slugs, but yesterday we saw a Great Grey Slug. It's cool because it has spots on it.
My older son found it yesterday and rescued it from a puddle. As he was checking out a puddle (it rained a ton the night before), he picked of a glop of mud and then all of a sudden he was startled when he saw inside the mud was this creature!! And reflexively he dropped it back in the water.
Feeling hesitant about sticking his hands in the puddle and possibly picking up (what could have been) a dead slug, first he tried to pick some of the mud up with a stick to get the slug out, but that didn't work. So then he decided he would have to stick his hands back in and pick. . . up. . . the (slimy!!) slug. He reached in, and lifted it out, and was happy to see that it was alive because he noticed that the little hole slugs breathe through was still opening and closing. Then he brought if over and showed me.
We weren't sure if it would make it because we wondered how it would live after being at the bottom of a full puddle.
Here is a picture of it after it was taken out of the puddle. My son is holding it. The picture was taken at 2:18 pm:
Here is a picture of it after it he laid it down beside the puddle (you can see a small part of the puddle up in the upper right hand corner of the picture). It was taken at 2:20 pm:
About an hour later my son went out to check on it, and it was looking really good and it was crawling. This picture was taken at 3:22 pm:
Taken at 3:32 pm:
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