Also known as the Slender Amber Snail. This is a small snail, with an elongated thin shell. They can be pale or dark, but generally brown. The final whorl is very large, but the snail does not completely withdraw into its shell, as you can see the shell is slightly raised from the leaf. It lives near water, in marshes, water meadows, on floating plants, and lays its eggs in water.
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Grey Field Slug
This slug was a medium-sized one at around 3cm in length. I identified it as a Grey Field Slug. It was grey and brown. The colour of the Grey Field Slug varies but is usually blotchy or mottled, and the head and antennae are dark. Another identifier is that its slime has a milky appearance, which you can see on the blade of grass that it has just left. It is found in most habitats and is thought of as a pest (as are all its cousins!)
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Disc Snail (Discus rotundatus)
I thought I had ‘done’ snails, but on the back of the old wooden bridge that was lying against the drystone wall of the ramp, I realised that this little brown snail was unlike the others as its shell was flattened like a disc. The shell was brown and flat with dense ribbing and darker patches. The body of the snail was blue-black on top with paler grey underneath. The disc snail eats plant debris, fungi ad algae. They live in moist sheltered places, like leaf litter, dead logs and under stones.
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Black Slug and Sycamore
I think the Slug and Sycamore would make a great pub name! The sycamore shoot is in the bank down beneath the silver birch. We frequently get sycamore shoots in the top garden and the bank because this side of the valley used to be lined with sycamore trees. We have four stumps in one of our flower beds. One is pretty much disintegrated and the other three are home to bracket and other fungus. We will probably pull up this little one as it is too close to the silver birch and sycamores can grow up to 35m tall.
I spotted the black slug (Arion ater) a while back, just before Little Venice got flooded.
Black slugs are not always black. They start life as pale specimens, and there are red and brown variations. Also, there is a tendency to darker shades the further away from the equator you get.
I found out that black slugs have a top speed of 1.8inches per minute – that’s 0.0017mph. This compares to the Leopard Slug (Limax maximus), which is the fastest slug and can whizz along at 6 inches per minute – 0.0056mph.
Finally, not all slugs are bad for the garden. The black slug eats an omnivorous diet including dead plant and animal matter, earthworms, and fungi. It rasps its food into tiny pieces with a band of microscopic teeth called radula.
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Two slugs – Spanish Slug and Large Red Slug
The Large Red Slug (Arion rufus) always has an orange skirt and tends to orange nearer the head, as per this individual.
This is a Spanish Slug (Arion vulgaris). It’s a dark sludge coloured slug, but not quite black. I believe it to be a Spanish slug as its sole is darker than the body sides, but this is not conclusive as there are variations and hybridisations among the slug population, which means it is regularly confused with other Arion species. Apparently, the only foolproof method of correctly identifying them is by dissection, so I’d rather pass on being 100% accurate, if that’s okay.
Slugs eat plant leaves, stems, and roots, plant debris and decaying matter, fungi, and earthworms. They can generally be seen at night in spring, summer and autumn in the garden, hedgerows meadows and woods.
Why are slugs so slimy? Their slime has many uses. It prevents them from drying out, helps to propel them forward and makes them taste bad to potential predators. Finally, when they discover a yummy food source, they can follow their slime trail from the night before back to their dinner.
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Snail Special
This is a Lipped Snail. These can be white-lipped or brown-lipped depending on the colour of the rim of the shell. It’s impossible to tell with the stripy one unless I manage to find it again and look specifically, as they come in many different colourways and it’s only the lip that defines which sort it is. Since I took this photo, I have seen both white-lipped and brown-lipped snails.
The white-lipped snail is usually yellow, but may be pink, brown, or red with up to five dark bands and nearly always has an obvious white lip. White-lipped snails live in damp vegetation. Their favourite foodstuffs are nettles, ragwort, and hogweed.
The brown-lipped snail typically has a stripy shell again with up to five bands, yellow through dark brown with pink or orange possible. Brown-lipped snails like a variety of habitats, but preferably damp. They are easier to spot in wet weather as they climb plants and trees then. They eat nettles and buttercups, but usually prefer dead or decaying foliage to fresh.
This is the Brown Garden Snail (Cornu aspersum, previously known as Helix aspersa). It is larger than the lipped snails with a thick shell, matt and rough in texture. It has dark spiral bands alternating with yellow-ish broken bands, giving quite a distinctive tweedy look. It is mainly nocturnal and omnivorous, preferring to eat plant matter, but occasionally eating worms, other snails, and dead animal matter. I found this quite surprising. And In spite of their diet, they are edible.