Do You Know What A Killer Slug Looks Like?

Do You Know What A Killer Slug Looks Like?

Aug 14 2008

When you want to grow your own food it’s essential that the young plants don’t fall into the wrong hands before harvest. Or mouths. This is not the case with killer slugs (Arion Lusitanicus). They will go berserk on your plants so you have got to do something if they are roaming your area.

I don’t know where I picked up this fact but in my area there seems to be two different slugs, that looks like each other, but one of them is quite harmless. I love animals (vegan-wannabe, but only vegetarian so far ) and I really don’t like to kill any of them. It’s hard enough to boil the killer slugs so if I can spare the good guys we will keep a little more of the much needed variation in nature.

The killer slug is called Arion Lusitanicus.
The good guys is called Arion Rufus (Red Slug).

Let’s see what Google comes up with:

Pictures of Arion Lusitanicus

Pictures of Arion Rufus

Well, I think I just boiled a couple of good guys

And today this slug problem just got a little weird. The common history of the killer slug says it originates from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Gibraltar, France), hence the name Spanish Slugs. But DNA tests from Portugal show that it does not come from the Iberian Peninsula.

It’s destroying our food and we don’t know where it comes from. Ouch!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Related posts:
2 Responses to “Do You Know What A Killer Slug Looks Like?”
1. Sandy said on August 21st, 2008 at 6:03 am
  
  Hello, I live in Seattle, Washington, USA — and we have a lot of slugs here! I know it is silly, but I, too, feel a little bad about killing them. My husband poured salt on one the other day and the kids thought that was pretty exciting. I’d rather just squish it outright, nice and fast. We are getting chickens soon so my new plan is to toss the slugs into the coop and let the chickens have at it. We’ll see how that goes. Pretty nasty creatures I have to say.
2. Thomas said on August 21st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
  
  @Sandy: Is it the Arion Lusitanicus slugs you have in your area? (I’m doing a little research on where they have been spotted.)
  I know it takes a lot of energy to boil them, which is not good, but salt will disturb the balance of the soil and also give them a slower death.
  I’ve read that natural slug enemies in my area don’t eat them because they taste bad. So I would like to hear about your chicken project. They’re also masters at turning garbage into good soil.
Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.