Ten slug facts

Here are some things you may not have known about slugs.

• There are approximately 40 species of slug found in the UK, with only a small number of them considered as pest species.
• Slugs travel at speeds that vary from slow (0.013 m/s) to very slow (0.0028 m/s).
• During cold weather slugs hide in the topsoil. 

[1] Great grey slug (Limax maximus) [2] Cos lettuce

• Slugs consume around forty times their weight in the space of a day
• Limax maximus, the great grey slug, can stretch to approximately twenty times its length in order to squeeze through narrow gaps.
• The largest UK slug is Limax cinereoniger, which can reach up to 25cm when fully grown.

[3] Limax cinereoniger is Britains largest slug. [4] Leopard slugs eat fungi.

• Not all slugs eat lettuce; leopard slugs eat fungi, rotting plants and even other slugs, and there are three species of slugs, of the Testacella family, that eat earthworms.
• A slug has approximately 27,000 teeth!
• Slugs are food. All sorts of mammals, thrushes, slow worms, earthworms and insects eat them. Some people eat them, fried with garlic.

Slow worms, thrushes and badgers all eat slugs.

• Slug blood is green. The proteins in slug blood carry copper atoms instead of iron; copper also attracts oxygen. The copper gives the blood a bluish green colour.
• That was ten interesting things you probably didn’t know about slugs; here is an extra one for luck: slugs can live for six years.

Header image: yellow slug (CC0) pxhere.com

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