Category Archives: molluscs

The ballerina and the slug

28 Friday Oct 2022

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Two slugs in one week – what were the chances? But when I glimpsed this gorgeous Pink waxcap (also known as the Ballerina waxcap) (Hygrocybe calyptriformis) almost hidden in a small grassy hollow and gently smoothed back the grass around it to take my photo, I found this Large red slug nestled alongside. If a slug could smile, this one would be grinning from ear to ear, and I imagine the waxcap had mostly been consumed by the next morning.

221028 pink waxcap large red slug

A live slug

24 Monday Oct 2022

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I was rather concerned when, last month, I read a report that ecologists were concerned the slug and snail populations may have been devastated by the summer heatwaves and drought (The Guardian, 27 September 2022). Though I’m sure many gardeners would rejoice at this news, their slimy little enemies do play an essential part in our ecosystems, breaking down vegetation and aerating soils, as well as being food for birds, hedgehogs, etc. Fortunately, for the slugs and snails, they are apparently excellent reproducers so their populations should bounce back next year. Still, I was really pleased to spot this handsome Large red slug (Arion rufus) sliding along the path during yesterday’s walk.

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Tricksy snails

19 Wednesday Jan 2022

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Snails are much more difficult to identify than you might imagine, especially when you don’t – as I didn’t – examine all the relevant parts of the shell that help with identification. The opening of the shell, for example, often holds key features. In this particular case, I was happy just to watch this tiny creature going about its daily life.

220119 snail

Green cellar slug

01 Thursday Apr 2021

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Thanks to the expert whose voluntary task it is to verify any slug records input to the local biodiversity records database, I now know that what I thought was a Leopard slug (Limax maximus) is actually a Green cellar slug (Limacus maculatus). The expert kindly explained: ‘You are far from the first person to have made this misidentification. Limax maximus is brown, rather rougher and dryer in texture than either of the Limacus species,[and] is usually solitary.’ Always learning!

210401 green cellar slug

333/366 Striped snail

28 Saturday Nov 2020

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And now for something completely different….

201128 striped snail (1)

I don’t often look at molluscs but these banded beauties caught my eye when I was walking across the Cardiff Bay Barrage earlier this week. I’m fairly sure they’re Cernuella virgata, Striped or Banded snails.

The presence of dark-on-light spiralling bands on their shells is one defining feature, as is their semi-spherical, rather than flat, shape, and the small open umbilicus. And they’re usually found on coastal sites, particularly in calcareous grassland, which fits the Barrage location.

201128 striped snail (2)

304/366 Wild word: deliquesce

30 Friday Oct 2020

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Deliquesce: verb; (of organic matter) become liquid, typically during decomposition. Mid 18th century from Latin deliquescere ‘dissolve’, from de- ‘down’ + liquescere ‘become liquid’ (Oxford Dictionary).

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These Shaggy inkcaps (Coprinus comatus) may look sturdy and robust but, like all inkcaps and many other species of fungi, they only last a few days, sometimes as little as 24 hours, before turning into a rather disgusting-looking liquid mush, as shown by the specimen below. If you want to read more about the how and why of that process, about the inkcaps’ ‘habit of destroying themselves with their own enzymes’, check out The Dish on Deliquescence in Coprinus Species by Jonathan Landsman on the Cornell Mushroom blog.

Many humans may not know that inkcaps quickly deliquesce but slugs do. This slimy beastie was digging in to a Shaggy inkcap delicacy before the fungus had a chance to digest itself.

201030 shaggy inkcap (6)

191/366 Snail sex

09 Thursday Jul 2020

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I’ve noticed snails cwtched up together many times in the past but I’d never observed the nitty gritty of what they were actually doing until I saw this pair. Because they’d pulled slightly apart, it was possible to see their ‘apparatus’ in action.

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And what about the tiny white spike on the snail at left? Is that one of the love darts that snails stab their mates with? I don’t know enough about snails to be sure but, for more on this point, you can read about the sharp end of snail sex on the National Geographic website here.

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16/366 Beneath

16 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in insects, molluscs, nature, winter

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When wet weather forces a change of plan, sometimes the only thing for it is to head to the woods and turn over some logs, because there’s never nothing to see under a log!

Two slugs, possibly even the same species despite their obvious colour differences.

Eggs? Those on the left might well be slug or snail eggs but the ones on the right were much smaller and seemed caught up in a web or perhaps just strands of slime. I didn’t poke them – didn’t want to disturb them – so I’m not sure of their texture.

200116 5 slime

A slime mould, though not as much slime as I was hoping for. Possibly one of the Trichia species, perhaps Trichia persimilis.

200116 8 springtail

A springtail, probably one of the Entomobrya species but I really needed a photo of its upper side to be able to confirm its identification.

200116 7 hairy snails

Hairy snails (Trochulus hispidus), I believe, as the only other hairy snail has a more conical shell. It always seems odd to me for a snail to have hairs … but odd is good, interesting, never boring!