Slugs - The slimy monsoon monsters

Just as I begin to write this one down, my dearest monsoon has started packing up for next year. We all love monsoon and the dark clouds that fill up the sky making us on switch on our lights and start preparing for some snacks.

That when it starts raining I cannot stop taking my favourite chair out in the balcony and just sit there watching the clouds drain themselves.

While rains bring much joy, they also bring a host of unwanted guests. One of the strangest I found in my lobby was a slimy creature. I mistook it as a snail who has lost his or her (hard to tell) shell. But then I remembers a wild life documentary which mentioned a video of somewhat similar creature roaming at the surface of the sea and I remembered the name "Slug". The name means 'stomach foot'.

Slug have two pairs of retractable tentacles on top of the head. Light sensitive eye spots are located on top of the tentacles. Each lost tentacle can be regenerated.

Hell my lobby is not a sea floor but this looked damn similar to those hideous ones you would dare to touch or even dream of holding one in your hands.

Intrigued by this strange slug I tried to give it a chokeslam (kidding off course) to grab a snap of its bottom. It just got more strange. It had a wierd bottom and I could see it expand and contract it self. I wondered if a bird had balls enough to catch it in its beak and gulp it down its throat. Hell this one would simply crawl back out.

Here are some video grabs of this slug trying to make movements. It was damn slow as well.

I remembered I had a time lapse feature in my phone camera, which I keep using now and then but usually delete them afterwards.

So I captured two time lapse videos of this slug trying to twist it way out.

Time Lapse 1 -

Time Lapse 2 (a full 360 degree rotation)

Snails and slugs are both part of the same class of creatures called gastropods. The most obvious difference between snails and slugs is that fact that snails have shells. So basically snails carry their home on their back.

Slugs play important role in natural ecosystems. They remove dead, decaying plant matter and serve as important source of food for various species of animals. In many areas, slugs are classified as pests because they are able to seriously damage garden plants and crops.

Live slugs that are accidently eaten, I mean with improperly cooked vegetables or improperly cooked slugs, can act as a vector for a parasitic infections in humans.

Ending in a final quote, just because I like this one.

The more bullets flying, the less accurate each individual slug has to be. - Andrew Vachss

Do Slugs feel pain from Salt ?

Yes.

Slugs have very think permeable skin and salt, if sprinkled on the slug, will result in water rapidly getting sucked out of their cells via process called Osmosis. Salt mixes with water in the mucus and creates a salt-water solution. This solution has a higher salt concentration than inside of the slug, so osmosis occurs and water from the slug's skin cells passes through the membranes to dilute the solution and even things out. If you use enough salt the slug will lose so much water that it dehydrates, dies and winds up looking shriveled.

We humans skin can handle salt without dehydrating because our skin is not as permeable as slug's.

You might have noticed, if not its ok since it is not a beautiful site to behold, that if you sprinkle some salt over slug or snails, bubbles or froths start appearing on them. This is because the slug tried to go into a full throttle mode to produce as much slime as possible to protect itself from drying out.