Black Slug Banana Slug Go!

Living in Minnesota we had slugs but not many, few enough that one might live their whole life in Minnesota and never see a single one. Their lack of observance might be more of a function of their size rather than their sparsity as anyone who tries to grow hostas in Minnesota is well aware. The slugs in Minnesota are maybe a centimeter long and dark grey, and they ravenously eat hostas and many other garden plants. They are a hated garden pest of any Minnesota gardener.

In Seattle though this is not the case you will see inch long black slugs trundling along the sidewalk or half dead and dried up on the sidewalks any time it was wet over night. No one seems to care about these comparatively monstrous slugs here in Seattle, and given their size I was surprised any plants could survive them. But I never gave it much though really not until I began hiking in the rainforests of the Cascade mountains.

The banana slug so named because it is often bright yellow with dark brown/black spots, but can also be yellow with no >spots, green, brown or white. On a hike today I came across my first spotted one and snapped this picture.
_{Photo by Kelly Anderson taken with the Nikon >D5100}

I have been on two hikes now that have been in areas wet enough to be considered rainforest. There are amazing trees covered in moss, waterfalls, rivers and this list goes on, but this post is not about the forest itself but a few of its denizens, the slugs! Roaming amongst the leaf litter are two of the largest land slugs in the world. The Black Slug that can reach sizes of up to 5.9 inches; and the Banana Slug that can reach sizes of up to 9.8 inches! These slugs are only to be outgrown by the European Limax cinereoniger slug which can reach up to 12 inches!

The black slug is a shiny deep black, and to me looks like they are made out of licorice candy that someone popped in >their mouth, chewed a bit and then spit out when they realized they don’t like black licorice candy.
_{Photo >by Kelly Anderson taken with the Olympus EM5}

It was while reading about these rather amazing species of slug that I realized why the slugs around Seattle are not considered pests. They don’t eat live plants, they eat mostly eat plant matter, animal droppings and mushrooms; and then they poop nitrogen rich fertilizer! Who wouldn't want these guys in their garden?

Cheers, @kellyjanderson

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