Slugs like the shady life
Most species of slugs feed on a wide variety of plant material. This means that they can be a real pest in the garden.
They will eat silver beet, cabbage, carrots and peas to name a few vegetables and flower plants including petunias, daisies, daffodils and lilies.
Strawberries are a real favourite. They can destroy plants faster than they can grow.
Slugs are known as gastropods from the Greek gastro referring to stomach and podo foot.
Their stomach acts as their ‘‘foot’’ and they slide along on it. Slugs are known gastropod molluscs. Most do not have a shell as we see in snails.
They have two pairs of tentacles or feelers. The top pair are light sensing and the bottom pair are sensory and detect the smell of our plants. Both pairs are retractable.
Their bodies are made up mostly of water and without having a shell for protection they make a protective mucus to enable them to survive.
When resting during the daylight hours they will dry up and die if they are unable to find a damp place in which to hide. This action suggests a good method of slug control. Remove as many slug hiding places from the garden as possible and the slug population will decrease markedly.
A pile of slug eggs can be seen in the photograph and on the side of the slug that is next to the eggs a dark breathing opening can be seen. A slug can lay as many as 30 eggs, so they can multiply quite quickly.
Thankfully there are a number of predators that hunt for slugs and help in their control. In our gardens they are eaten by black birds and thrushes.
They are also a favourite food of ducks and hedgehogs.