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Canwest News Service
What it's called: The great grey slug of Europe, or in Latin, Limax maximus.
What it looks like: Like a great grey mother of a slug. The biggest ones can grow to 20 centimetres from tail to tentacle with the commensurate girth of a fat cigar. Given its name, it's not surprising that it's mainly pale or ash grey in colour, though some are brown or even yellow. And befitting its other moniker, the leopard slug, its shield is streaked or spotted black. Its "foot", the appendage it uses to get around, is always ash-coloured, but the thick, glutinous slime it exudes when it moves turns iridescent when it dries.
Where to find it: Though indigenous to Europe, it was introduced to North America in the 19th century (a man in Philadelphia discovered one in 1867) and eventually the Lower Mainland where, like all slugs, it is considered a garden pest. To make matters worse, it likes to be near places of human habitation such as your lawn and/or basement and garage. However, as it's nocturnal it can be difficult to spot – despite its great grey size. In nature it likes damp areas such as woods or hedgerows (in its native England).
What it eats: A wide of variety of plants, fungi and even other slugs. In fact, by slug standards it is regarded as a voracious predator.
What eats it: Because the great grey slug isn't native to B.C., it has no dedicated natural predators here. However, among the many animals known to eat slugs are jays, starlings, gulls, owls, robins, foxes, rats, toads and lizards.
How it reproduces: Two hermaphroditic slugs begin by circling and licking each other. Then they climb a tree and coil around each other thus creating one big lovemaking slug. When this is done they lower themselves on a thick strand of mucous, entwine their mating organs and exchange sperm. Then each will lay up to 500 fertilized eggs.
How it moves: Not that sluggishly, at least compared to other slugs. It can travel at a break-neck speed of 15 centimetres a minute. Scoff if you will, but that's four times faster than our own native banana slug.
