Anyone else keep slugs?

[Caseyface]

It's bizarre to see people so nonchalant about banana slugs. I heard about them all my life, and when I first got to encounter one - only last year - it felt like meeting a unicorn or a mermaid.

I would probably give almost anything to live DIRECTLY in one of those coastal forests, that's pure heaven to me. Moss and rain and mushrooms and slugs. Can't believe you can be so....flippant about it all. You are living in a paradise few people can dream of, as far as I see it.

The only time I've come across a banana slug I felt the same way. I was out fishing out in the Cascades, and had my things in a little bundle. I went to check the time, and there it was: a banana slug in all of it's glory...on my phone! I wasn't *allowed* to keep him, and was pretty bummed. Not too long after, I was doing laundry and almost stepped on leopard slug. That one? Yeah, I kept him.

 

[Scythemantis]

I grew up with the leopard slugs, so they're the ones I find more "normal" myself, but I still appreciate them quite a bit. I learned the hard way though that you can only keep them alone; they enjoy eating each other in captivity more than they'll go for ANY other food, no matter how much you provide!

I really missed them for the brief period I lived in the dry, dusty Midwest, but caught one on a trip back to my home state (Maryland) and it survived a good while.

And that is awful about the threats to Richardson Grove : /

 

[GingerC]

This probably doesn't belong on a slug thread, but at least it's still a gastropod! My little brother just found one of those conical brown garden snails sitting in a pile of slime in a hole somewhere, and so of course he brought it to me... Poor thing was shrivelled up like a noodle.

Luckily, I was preparing for a pet slug, and so I had a temporary habitat set up and some dechlorinated water ready. I was pretty sure the snail was dead, but I sprayed a tiny bit of water at it and it withdrew further into the shell, so I decided to keep it. It's been about 45 minutes and it's starting to fatten up from the moisture. So far all I have to feed it is some cat kibble soaking in water, because I haven't identified the species and don't know its diet. In the meantime, at least it's showing signs of life, so hopefully it'll make it.

Update: I checked on it again and it was actually partway out of its shell like it was about to go crawling around! Yay!

Update 2: I snuck in and checked on it around 3 in the morning. It was stuffing its face with romaine lettuce and then began sliding along to the other side of the enclosure, so I snapped a few pictures. This is the first time I've seen these snails come out of their shells, and it really excited me. I'm pretty enamored with the little slimeball!