Giant slug!

[Holly]

Ran out of snacks for Noodle today so we went on a field trip to the park and found the motherload of slugs and worms, now have enough slugs to get a good sized colony going!

Also found this guy, my husband wants to keep it as a pet. I named it tank because it's so big it looks like it has tank treads!

On my husband's hand because it's gross and I won't touch it!

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4134/4739417587_027e4bd35a.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4121/4740038646_ce8b3199fa.jpg

Anyway, right now he's in the fridge with the rest of the food we found and some snails. My husband wants to set up a small Kritter Keeper with Tank and the snails. Would I have to keep the whole thing in the fridge?

[Laura]

Awww don't use him as food! That lil guy is probably very old, I read somewhere the bigger they are the older they are (can live up to 5/6yrs old)

[Holly]

He's way too big to use as food! My poor little Dekayi would probably get eaten by it!

I just don't know if I should keep it in the fridge or not, our new place doesn't get as hot as the old place did.

[ConcinusMan]

Pretty cool slug. Never thought about having one as a pet though. I imagine it would be hard to keep him cool in my house. I find slugs like that deep in the woods in western Washington and Oregon. Some of them have an orange tint to them. Good luck getting the slime off of your hand. Those big native slugs are bad news for garters or humans. The slime will cause major problems. Better off feeding garters with non-native common garden slugs.

That is no ordinary slug you have there. The slime will choke a garter. Those slugs, when stretched out and on the move, can reach lengths of 10 inches.

If you were to keep slugs and snails found in the woods, as pets, you would need a fridge to keep them at around 55 degrees F. Otherwise, they just go dormant or die. Do not underestimate their need for food. It will shock you. That guy probably eats the equivalent of an entire head of cabbage in just a couple of days.

[guidofatherof5]

Not sure the fridge is the place to keep it if you plan on keeping it as a pet. Cold temps will probably cause it to be more dormant. Room temp and high hunidity for that monster. Any left over veggies or veggy scraps will be like heaven for your Slugzilla.

[Holly]

We found him under a chunk of wood ringing a garden in the park, it was about 16C out today.

My husband had to SCRAPE the slime off his hand, he was disgusted!

We usually feed our veggie scraps to the feeder slugs, lettuce cores, strawberry tops, etc. We never have a shortage of compost material. What size container do you recommend?

[guidofatherof5]

We found him under a chunk of wood ringing a garden in the park, it was about 16C out today.

My husband had to SCRAPE the slime off his hand, he was disgusted!

We usually feed our veggie scraps to the feeder slugs, lettuce cores, strawberry tops, etc. We never have a shortage of compost material. What size container do you recommend?

I would think a large shoe box size would work.
They do put out a lot of waste so changing substrate is important.
I let my captured leopard slug go in my wood pile. Hoping to get some smaller versions for feeding purposes.

[Holly]

How many different kinds of slugs are there? We found a bunch of the usual brown ones but we also found a lot of paler ones.

[guidofatherof5]

How many different kinds of slugs are there? We found a bunch of the usual brown ones but we also found a lot of paler ones.

I don't know. My slug info. is limited.
Some of my radixes say "Yum" while others say "Yuck"
I have noticed that the ones that eat them do so very fast. This avoids a mouth full of slime.
My dekayis eat them slow and don't seem to mind the slime at all. But then again my dekayis eat everything slow:D

[ConcinusMan]

I usually find these and they are often the biggest ones I can find under flower pots and stuff in my yard:

http://academic.evergreen.edu/projects/ants/tescbiota/mollusc/key/couplets/cp580a.jpg

But when I go out into the woods, the slugs there are monsters like the one you found, dark brown but with bright orange undersides and edges of the foot. Kinda like this one but darker above. They are really huge, like almost a foot long sometimes. The only time they are active and in the open is at night when it's wet and about 55 degrees. Never see them when it's warmer, even if it's wet outside. They can still be found hiding under logs and stuff. Hasn't been that long since I saw one. If I find another soon, I'll get pics.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_LbccUVbSRd8/SnpXEvNqb2I/AAAAAAAAE7k/Wg-lPq6VpvY/s400/Brown+Slug+-+Christine.jpg

[Holly]

I've never seen one like the top picture!

I did a bit of Googling and it looks like he's a black slug, apparently we have banana slugs here as well. I do not want to come across one of those!

[ConcinusMan]

I just googled "slugs of washington state" to find that top one. They are all over my yard and common in gardens. Didn't find a pic like the ones I find in the woods but I'm pretty sure it's the same one in the bottom pic, it's just that the ones I see have darker backs like yours.

This video is of a lady that lives just a few miles from me. It shows a good clear video of that first slug crawling at 02:36. It's by far the most abundant large slug in my yard.

Oregon Field Guide — Slugs · Oregon Public Broadcasting (http://www.opb.org/programs/ofg/segments/view/1683)

[Snakeknot]

Try Ivory liquid dish detergent. It works on pine sap. It SHOULD work on slug slime.

( I used to be a dog groomer's assistant. Yorkies were always coming in greasy even after the bath. Lemon joy worked on that followed by a good soaking in a dog safe shampoo. I can degrease anything! )

Devon

[Mommy2many]

Slugs and snails also like carrots! If using them as food, they do ok in fridge (just like worms) it will keep them dormant.

[Laura]

They also LOVE beer

[Mommy2many]

Beer kills them though:(

[Laura]

Always the good stuff that kills you :P

[Odie]

Beer kills them though:(
Only if the Beer is deep (3/8" to 1/2") :o
The Yeast draws them, they get drunk and can't climb out :eek:

[Mommy2many]

Then you can have a drunk snake:eek:

[Spankenstyne]

Haha nice. I grew up just outside Vancouver and we'd find monster slugs all the time. The biggest were the Banana Slugs, they're even bigger than the monster you found & you should be able to find these out there still. They get to about 10" and can stretch to almost twice that

not my pic
http://www.eleda.com/images/bananaslugs.jpg

[ConcinusMan]

Haha nice. I grew up just outside Vancouver and we'd find monster slugs all the time. The biggest were the Banana Slugs, they're even bigger than the monster you found & you should be able to find these out there still. They get to about 10" and can stretch to almost twice that

not my pic

We have those in the woods near the other Vancouver too. (WA state)

[drache]

the banana slugs I've seen near Santa Cruz, Ca were really deep banana yellow - very cool
and here's to their other (non-food) uses: Hate housework? Can't find a reliable cleaner? Try a slug. (http://www.anapsid.org/slugcleaner.html)

[Tyrel26]

Very interesting!

Thanks for the link.

Tyrel

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

Banana Slugs are native to the Pacific Northwest, but the Black Slug (comes in black, pale, brown, rusty orange, brown with bright orange ventro-lateral pigmentation, etc...), aka Arion ater, is an invasive species from Northern Europe. It is extremely destructive to gardens, and its slime is foul-tasting to many predators. In Europe some snakes are known to eat them (I just don't know any details there...)

Our local banana slugs will make your tongue go numb if you lick them. Don't do it though, as they are often found eating nasty mushrooms and animal feces (great cleaner-uppers!). Bananas also have some incredible slime, and they can use it to bungie down great lengths when trapped up in a redwood branch during high heat (emergency escape!)
Oh! And here's at least one animal that eats bananas! This Pacific Giant Salamander acted like it had a mouthful of Novocaine.

http://www.humboldtherps.com/images/200808-HCHSimage-Pacific_Giant_Salamander_feeding_on_banana_slug-RNSP_east_of_Orick_CA_photo_by_M._Insalaco_01D_.jp g

Steve

[ConcinusMan]

I have found bananna slugs around here, AND salamanders just like that guy. Our banana slugs found locally are not yellow though! Seriously, they are dark chocolate brown with orange markings or orange undersides, but a guy at the University of WA assured me that they are banana slugs.

I have actually witnessed them feeding on deadly amanita (destroying angel / death cap) mushrooms and it doesn't affect them. But I'm sure that if they had just eaten one, that the slug meal would not be good for many predators. I have also seen several of these slugs feeding on piles of coyote feces. EEEWW.

You can't feed these slugs to garters anyway. The slime is like super glue, I mean, garters will choke on it. It's really bad. If you get it on your hands, it's worse than rubber cement.

[mustang]

wahoo one less maid service when i move out!

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

Our banana slugs found locally are not yellow though! Seriously, they are dark chocolate brown with orange markings or orange undersides, but a guy at the University of WA assured me that they are banana slugs.

Slug comparisons:

Banana slug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_slug)

Black slug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_slug)

I am pretty confident that banana slugs do not have orange undersides. The brown variants of the black slug do. We have these all over Humboldt County, and they are often almost as big as the bananas... Arion ater is also listed in many of the guides pertaining to the Pacific Northwest.

Steve

[ConcinusMan]

http://delta-intkey.com/britmo/images/tayp2018.jpg

Well, pic #7, 8, and 9, do look a bit like the slugs I find in the woods in SW WA state.

[guidofatherof5]

Slug comparisons:
Banana slug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_slug)

Black slug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_slug)
Steve

Thanks for the links. Slugs are always a good read:D