This morning I spotted a huge slug in the garden. I’d never seen one this big before.
Although I didn’t think to put something down beside the creature as a measure, it was around the size of my little finger.
Later when I went back with a measure the slug was gone but a slime-print remained. That print was around 6 cm long.
The slug was dining on a fragment of mushroom that had grown beneath a bag of pea-straw. It had amazing eye-stalks that it withdrew shortly after I’d taken the photo. Perhaps the flash on my camera frightened or blinded it.
I know nothing about slugs, but is that perhaps an ear further back on its head? [Later: Oh, Wikipedia reveals that it's a pneumostome — a respiratory opening. ]
I was hoping this was some rare native, but apparently it’s an import — the Yellow cellar slug or Limacus flavus (Linnaeus):
- Class: Gastropoda
- Order: Pulmonata
- Family: Limacidae.
- Size range: Up to 100 mm in length when fully grown
- Distribution: Native to temperate parts of Europe. Can tolerate low temperatures
- Life History: One of of the larger species found in gardens, close to human dwellings
- Nocturnal. Needs moist surroundings
- Feeds above ground on decaying vegetable matter, fungi and lichens
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