Squishy Things

I am obsessed with slugs because I grew up in Britain which is infested with slugs - every garden in Britian gets fat finger size orange, brown and black slugs that crawl up and down walls and trees and leave slime trails eveywhere. It's even worse if you have dogs and cats because then you see them eat the slugs up and that is unbelievably putrid - really.

And I used to live in Swansea, Wales and one year it rained at least once a day every day from September to April. And in this squalid student house I lived in we had slugs in the shower - and North Americans wonder why British people don't smell too good.

But then I was looking around at web pages - and there aren't that many on slugs - when I saw lots of pictures of sea slugs and while they are still squishy - they are also very beautiful. So come inside and look at the squishy things - but remember - don't pet them too hard and please make use of the washing facilities when you leave.

And have a slimey, squishy time.

	Slugs range in size from 1/2 inch to 10 inches in length. They live for 1-6 years depending on their species and they eat pretty much anything mouldy: fungi, lichens, worms, animal feces, carrion and other slugs. Slugs are eaten by mice, rats, voles, pets, amphibians, birds, beetles, other slugs and some humans. My Mum and Dad used to get rid of slugs by putting out saucers of cider and in the morning we would go out to find bunches of drunk, dead slugs stranded in the empty saucer. Not a bad way to go eh? Slugs propagate by laying tiny eggs. Some species of slug can lay 500 eggs per year. Some of this information comes from the sluggy page House of Slime
	These sluggies are "rogering." Slugs don't need other slugs to do this eg. they can reproduce hermaphroditically - but like everybody else they like to be "friendly." The following description of slug sex comes from Slugline Mating begins after a courtship ritual consisting of mantle-flapping and slime- eating...At last the pair entwine and dangle from a cord of their own slime and begin rotating back and forth. They then extrude their sexual organs (the blue bits in the photo)...The slugs continue to rotate, entwining their now exposed organs and exchange sperm masses. Once complete, the slugs re-ascend the slime cord, eating it as they go. Yummy eh?
	This is a banana slug. These slugs live along the Northwest coast of North America. Apparently Seattle and Vancouver are infested with them. A banana slug is a favourite college mascot in the States - which is a bit bewildering. I mean why would you want your athletic or intellectual abilities typified by a slug?
	*This is a seaslug - a Nudibranch. Actually a Janolus /cristatus* - whatever that means. You can find a whole bunch of these gorgeous slug pictures on German Slug Site**

If you feel I have unfairly neglected anything/anyone squishy please email me with details and pictures and I will be overjoyed to add more squishy beings to this page.

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