I have tried so hard to be okay with slugs. Really, I have. However, this year the sheer volume of their gross rubbery bodies is so high in my tiny back yard that it鈥檚 all I can do to walk to the BBQ without dry heaving.
Like greedy, fleshy vampires, they shred plant and animal matter with a toothed, conveyor belt tongue called a radula. Flicking it back and forth, they punch our kale full of holes, and clean off the squirrel skeleton long picked over by the ravens.
The rainy weather of this summer has probably helped them grow their numbers, the moist air maintaining their pudgy cylindrical bodies in tip top condition.
Here are some fun facts: Dercoceras laeve, the only native species in Alberta and thus Jasper, can have up to five generations of young in a year, and many of those can be alive at the same time. It鈥檚 a slug family reunion, and everyone鈥檚 invited. EVERYONE.
Of course to get a family reunion of that size, there needs to be a whole lot of slug nookie. Slugs are hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female sex organs. They exchange sperm by lining up their corkscrew-like male genitalia (a penis resembling organ) with the corresponding female parts on another slug. Though you wouldn鈥檛 know it looking in my back yard, sometimes this can go awry.
The 鈥榩enis鈥� sometimes gets stuck in the other slug. But fear not, they are not forever stuck together in a slimy embrace! No, because slugs can employ a technique called apophallation in which they use their cheese-grater tongues to saw off the stuck slug鈥檚 penis. Yep. It happens here in Jasper National Park with our native species; Penis-sawing.
I doubt at this point you鈥檒l want to read more, but here鈥檚 another reason to be repulsed by slugs: They are intermediate hosts for a whole bunch of nasty parasites, using their bodies as a stopover point for creatures like lung worm, known to infect bighorn sheep. They also happily provide a warm home for a parasitic worm that likes to live in the muscles of mule deer. In one study, over five per cent of slugs were ripe with this parasite, the worms just waiting to burst from the slug bodies, alien-style, onto some grass a poor deer was eating. Five per cent! Doesn鈥檛 that seem like a lot?
Wait. I think I鈥檓 starting to sound a bit hysterical. I mean, aren鈥檛 slugs just snails with no shell? As a science writer, shouldn鈥檛 I provide some kind of balanced view here? Take the gastropodic higher road?
There are a FEW benefits of slugs, I guess. They are food for toads, and some birds like thrushes, and they actually have one of the less desirable jobs in the animal kingdom 鈥� slurping up dead and rotting plant and animal matter. Imagine if no one was picking up the organic garbage out there? The ravens can鈥檛 do it all on their own.
The problem is, slugs eat a lot of stuff that isn鈥檛 dead. Ask any gardener in town. And this week I learned that there鈥檚 a species of slug that eats baby birds, helplessly snuggled in their nests. That was really the final straw for me.
I just don鈥檛 like them! There, I said it, and I don鈥檛 think I鈥檓 alone here. There鈥檚 a reason one of the most loathsome creatures from Star Wars looks like a slug on steroids鈥擨鈥檓 looking at you Jabba the Hut.
Niki Wilson Special to the 51暗网
