- Joined
- Feb 27, 2005
- Messages
- 499
I know there's still a slug thread on the first page, but I feel like starting one for my photos and information. I'm a little sad to see the weirded out or even mocking reaction some posters here have had to the idea of keeping slugs; they have been some of my favorite animals since childhood, I love having a bunch of slimeblobs creeping around in a terrarium, and the ease with which I can find them outdoors doesn't make them feel any less cool to me as indoor pets either.
I actually just moved to the pacific northwest last year, and it has been a dream come true for my love of these animals, in more ways than one. Here's every slug that I currently have, and why I think they're fascinating.
First, the banana slugs. These can *only* be found out here on the West coast, and they always seemed like some amazing, foreign exotic to me before. I'm still thrilled every time I find one in the wild, and I've been keeping several since our first week in Oregon.
Unlike most of my other slugs, my bananas don't seem very fond of burrowing or hiding themselves, actually spending almost all of their time visible in their enclosure. This may be because they naturally taste terrible, also a reason for their bright (by slug standards) color scheme. What's rather interesting is that they're very, very sensitive to specific environments, namely cool, wet pine forests at high elevation, and I have to drive out to just the right local parks to see them. Many other slugs are rare or completely unheard of in these same environments, and it's likely that the toxins associated with pine trees are too much for them. Bananas, on the other hand, must be especially adapted for the higher acidity, and I know mine spend a lot of time on the hunks of pine wood in their tank.
What I'm not so confident about yet is my ability to keep these slugs healthy in the coming summer months. They are very, very sensitive to heat, and an air conditioner can only do so much.
Almost as massive as the banana slugs and very slightly easier to come by is the black slug, Arion ater, actually an invasive species. Their color ranges from pitch black to almost white, but they usually have a gold, red, yellow or orange rim as you see here. Unlike the bananas, these are omnivores and WILL attempt to eat other slugs and snails. They're also burrowers, and unlike my bananas, my aters spent the entire winter months completely buried, even indoors.
The "cellar slug," Limax Flavus, is an ultra-common "pest" around here that nobody really appreciates, but I was enamored right away by their cool, mossy color scheme and blue eyestalks. What's really cool about these is that they originally hail from caves, and now make do with man-made equivalents like basements and sewers. In Germany, I've read that they originally spread through beer and wine cellars, but more sanitary practices and fewer basements in modern architecture have rendered them endangered in their native range - they really need cave-like environments that much!
I provided my cellar slugs with a partially buried birdhouse, and they do seem to love it. I'm not completely sure if it's ideal, though; I might try to make them something out of brick or rock to live in.
The "leather leaf" slug, Veronicellidae, is actually something I only encountered when I lived down in Florida. To me it was an absolutely hellish environment, but these slugs seem to thrive in intense heat, even dryness, much better than any other. The flat, rubbery mantle covering their back is actually almost dry, and they produce extremely minimal slime, obvious adaptations for retaining moisture in hotter climates.
Through a lot of trial and error, I repeatedly got these guys to breed in captivity, but I did experience a sudden die-off when we moved to Iowa, and they just couldn't handle the winter there like my other mollusks. This is why I'm fairly confident they could never establish themselves this far north, and indeed, nobody's ever found them in the U.S. much farther than the Southern ends of the Carolinas.
Key to keeping these slugs happy, besides warmth, is very deep, semi-sandy soil, and they'll only lay eggs under objects like rocks or broad, flat hunks of wood. They really get into a breeding mood when their tank has been cleaned out and changed, or they've been transferred over to a new one, and unlike some slugs, they seem capable of mating more than once in their lifetime....others tend to bite off each other's genitalia when they're all done.
Finally, something that just absolutely FLOORED me was finding several of these "shelled slugs," Testacella haliotidea, right outside our apartment in Portland. I read about these when I was just a kid, but all I've ever heard was that they're "barely ever" seen by human eyes. This is actually because they're fossorial, like moles, deep under the ground where they prey upon earthworms, and only surface at night during heavy rainfall.
Within only minutes of setting up an enclosure and loading it with worms, I got to watch the predatory behavior of these things - it was a MASSACRE, with some worms severed neatly in two.
They've remained buried ever since, of course, but once in a while I see one of them up against the glass, and earthworms of all sizes just keep disappearing. I can find no precedent whatsoever for keeping these in captivity, so I guess I'm pioneering something.
Caring for all these slugs is fairly easy. They are certainly messy, it's true; in addition to their droppings they will just track soil and detritus all over the glass of a tank, but you only need a damp paper towel to fix that when it really becomes an eyesore. Otherwise, a rich indoor biome of plants, worms and isopods will just benefit from the slug's waste.
Key to keeping any slug happy seems to be moisture, deep soil, and lots of rotten forest litter. Fish flakes for protein and frozen slices of squash, mostly zuchinni, are my generic, staple slug diet and seems to keep all herbivorous/omnivorous species growing pretty well. They actually prefer the squash frozen, since it thaws out soggy and mushy for them and gets eaten up within hours.
I really don't see why these are so readily dismissed as a more boring pet than other inverts; even some of the more popular tarantulas, millipedes and roaches spend a lot of their time sitting in one place or buried in a tunnel. Slugs aren't fast, but you do see them poking all around their enclosures, they look cool and they're not demanding. Certainly more active than a house plant - which is also still interesting to keep - let alone the "pet hole" you get with some arachnids.
I actually just moved to the pacific northwest last year, and it has been a dream come true for my love of these animals, in more ways than one. Here's every slug that I currently have, and why I think they're fascinating.
First, the banana slugs. These can *only* be found out here on the West coast, and they always seemed like some amazing, foreign exotic to me before. I'm still thrilled every time I find one in the wild, and I've been keeping several since our first week in Oregon.
Unlike most of my other slugs, my bananas don't seem very fond of burrowing or hiding themselves, actually spending almost all of their time visible in their enclosure. This may be because they naturally taste terrible, also a reason for their bright (by slug standards) color scheme. What's rather interesting is that they're very, very sensitive to specific environments, namely cool, wet pine forests at high elevation, and I have to drive out to just the right local parks to see them. Many other slugs are rare or completely unheard of in these same environments, and it's likely that the toxins associated with pine trees are too much for them. Bananas, on the other hand, must be especially adapted for the higher acidity, and I know mine spend a lot of time on the hunks of pine wood in their tank.
What I'm not so confident about yet is my ability to keep these slugs healthy in the coming summer months. They are very, very sensitive to heat, and an air conditioner can only do so much.
Almost as massive as the banana slugs and very slightly easier to come by is the black slug, Arion ater, actually an invasive species. Their color ranges from pitch black to almost white, but they usually have a gold, red, yellow or orange rim as you see here. Unlike the bananas, these are omnivores and WILL attempt to eat other slugs and snails. They're also burrowers, and unlike my bananas, my aters spent the entire winter months completely buried, even indoors.
The "cellar slug," Limax Flavus, is an ultra-common "pest" around here that nobody really appreciates, but I was enamored right away by their cool, mossy color scheme and blue eyestalks. What's really cool about these is that they originally hail from caves, and now make do with man-made equivalents like basements and sewers. In Germany, I've read that they originally spread through beer and wine cellars, but more sanitary practices and fewer basements in modern architecture have rendered them endangered in their native range - they really need cave-like environments that much!
I provided my cellar slugs with a partially buried birdhouse, and they do seem to love it. I'm not completely sure if it's ideal, though; I might try to make them something out of brick or rock to live in.
The "leather leaf" slug, Veronicellidae, is actually something I only encountered when I lived down in Florida. To me it was an absolutely hellish environment, but these slugs seem to thrive in intense heat, even dryness, much better than any other. The flat, rubbery mantle covering their back is actually almost dry, and they produce extremely minimal slime, obvious adaptations for retaining moisture in hotter climates.
Through a lot of trial and error, I repeatedly got these guys to breed in captivity, but I did experience a sudden die-off when we moved to Iowa, and they just couldn't handle the winter there like my other mollusks. This is why I'm fairly confident they could never establish themselves this far north, and indeed, nobody's ever found them in the U.S. much farther than the Southern ends of the Carolinas.
Key to keeping these slugs happy, besides warmth, is very deep, semi-sandy soil, and they'll only lay eggs under objects like rocks or broad, flat hunks of wood. They really get into a breeding mood when their tank has been cleaned out and changed, or they've been transferred over to a new one, and unlike some slugs, they seem capable of mating more than once in their lifetime....others tend to bite off each other's genitalia when they're all done.
Finally, something that just absolutely FLOORED me was finding several of these "shelled slugs," Testacella haliotidea, right outside our apartment in Portland. I read about these when I was just a kid, but all I've ever heard was that they're "barely ever" seen by human eyes. This is actually because they're fossorial, like moles, deep under the ground where they prey upon earthworms, and only surface at night during heavy rainfall.
Within only minutes of setting up an enclosure and loading it with worms, I got to watch the predatory behavior of these things - it was a MASSACRE, with some worms severed neatly in two.
They've remained buried ever since, of course, but once in a while I see one of them up against the glass, and earthworms of all sizes just keep disappearing. I can find no precedent whatsoever for keeping these in captivity, so I guess I'm pioneering something.
Caring for all these slugs is fairly easy. They are certainly messy, it's true; in addition to their droppings they will just track soil and detritus all over the glass of a tank, but you only need a damp paper towel to fix that when it really becomes an eyesore. Otherwise, a rich indoor biome of plants, worms and isopods will just benefit from the slug's waste.
Key to keeping any slug happy seems to be moisture, deep soil, and lots of rotten forest litter. Fish flakes for protein and frozen slices of squash, mostly zuchinni, are my generic, staple slug diet and seems to keep all herbivorous/omnivorous species growing pretty well. They actually prefer the squash frozen, since it thaws out soggy and mushy for them and gets eaten up within hours.
I really don't see why these are so readily dismissed as a more boring pet than other inverts; even some of the more popular tarantulas, millipedes and roaches spend a lot of their time sitting in one place or buried in a tunnel. Slugs aren't fast, but you do see them poking all around their enclosures, they look cool and they're not demanding. Certainly more active than a house plant - which is also still interesting to keep - let alone the "pet hole" you get with some arachnids.
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