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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 25, 2012 12:42:33 GMT
Sluglet pics! Whassat there in the soil? Spot the slug! We're so transparent that the camera's focus doesn't find us when we climb on the plastic wall... As up close and personal as possible with the sluglet... For scale... they are TINY!! And there's plenty of sluglet to go around. I've spotted at least five so far, through the wall. They stay in the damp soil, thank goodness. One was hiding under a piece of tomato this morning, so they're starting to look for food I think. I hope I'm not completely swamped with slugs, though! I've let the eggs stay in the terrarium as I thought it's very difficult to hatch them... so I've no clue just how many eggs there are in total, lol. But thankfully they are very small slugs. And I'm getting more terrariums soon anyway, so I can put some in another box. But, BABIEEEEESSS!!! ;D
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 25, 2012 12:20:06 GMT
Oooh that darker snail is lovely! Nice variation. One of mine is the opposite: paler than the rest! Mine are aspersas, too. I love the photos, especially the ones where the snails extend their head... those are always so cute! It's like they go "O hai thar!"
Need to try wheatgrass myself. Always looking for stuff to grow in my snailery...
And, welcome to the forums!
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 25, 2012 0:37:32 GMT
I just peeked into the terrarium to see what everybody is up to, doing snaily things in the dark hours. Aspersas just waking up. Sluggies putting their heads in the soil, weird. That's the last position I found one when I last saw her alive so I got a little concerned and poked them sluggies, then picked the other up... saw an egg where his head had been.
Aha, laying eggs then. Both. Well, carry along then, nothing to see here.
I look at the other and see something odd and very small appear next to her. A worm! A worm in my tank! How did THIS get in here and what kind of fly did it come from?!
I pick up tweezers to remove it. It comes out a bit more and I aim my tweezers... then two minuscule eyestalks pop out and wave a bit before the little being crawls under a morsel of soil.
Then I see another for half a minute, before it disappears again.
Babies. Incredibly, unbelievably tiny, minuscule slug babies.
I have no clue how many... they are SO SMALL I don't know how can I even count them. If they crawl up a stack of five could fit through the airholes of the box. They would fit through the holes in a sieve! How am I gonna make sure they don't get out and die! I can't possibly move them all. Maybe move the soil where I estimate they are... oh gosh, need to think very carefully tomorrow morning. Lol, now I'm just baffled and happy that I finally have babies again!
I will try to take a picture. Try being keyword, need to see if my camera has a macro setting!
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 22, 2012 21:37:43 GMT
Mmmm... we love carrots! Everybody loves carrots! Funny slug faces. But they're so cute when they sleep like this next to each other.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 20, 2012 22:23:42 GMT
The bottom picture on the slug page is definitely a Deroceras slug. They all look very similar (have a look in my picture topic page 2, I posted about identifying mine) but different species have different mating rituals and genitalia. Apparently it's almost impossible to tell the species from each other without observing mating or cutting the poor slug up. The latest eggs apparently hatch as late as december in this region, Netherlands.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 20, 2012 22:11:58 GMT
I need some of those.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 19, 2012 18:20:27 GMT
I put the sluggy in one of the flowerpots where she probably was hatched in. I'd do the same to the two missing, if I find them.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 19, 2012 14:59:46 GMT
Thanks ness, and everyone. Yeah. It's "just a slug" I didn't even name because I thought I'd let them out when it's warm... but at least they lived a bit longer than they would have outside. The two remaining ones seem still going strong. I saw them mating last night. Maybe I get more eggs? There is a lot of slime tracks around the dead slug... it seems to have attracted a lot of attention. But it has not been eaten as I expected. Makes me wonder what happened to the one that just disappeared from a closed tank? I'm really dreading finding dead slugs hidden in corners... soon moving the last of the furniture to the new house and it's from the room where the tank is during most nights. Poor things don't make it longer than a day unlike snails. Oh why do they escape, silly little things? I suspect that these slugs are born darker and turn paler as they age, btw. I noticed that with several of them, including the two I have now. So maybe they have a few months left. Maybe I will release them so they get to feel the spring, having been born near winter.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 18, 2012 22:05:11 GMT
I knew this species is short-lived, but I guess I wasn't prepared for this. I just found the pale pink one stiff and unmoving. It went to sleep this morning into a hole one of the aspersas dug... and then it slept away. It doesn't react to anything so I'm quite sure it is dead. I put it back, though. I want to see what the two remaining slugs do.
I'm crying my eyes out. I got really attached to these slugs though I only had them for two months (excluding Sluggy). I had hoped for some babies before their natural lifespan came to an end... but I guess they did what they had to do: laid a lot of eggs and then prepared to die. There are some eggs from the last mating... I really hope they hatch so their effort in ideal conditions wasn't for nothing. I guess I kinda saw this coming as the slug refused its favourite food yesterday.... still not seeing its little pink eyestalks again hurts.
At least the aspersas are becoming active again
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 16, 2012 16:52:38 GMT
Oh sad day. The smallest slug has disappeared. *cries* I forgot the small lid slightly open so a small slug could have gotten through... It's the third one gone. One escaped from a small container when I was keeping them separate. One just... disappeared a few weeks ago from a closed snailery. I suspect it may have died naturally and been consumed by the others. No way it could have gotten out. And now the tiniest slug... I suspect the second one was actually Sluggy, because he was the oldest. Now I have one pink snd two brown ones left. The pink is a bit of a loner, sleeps apart from the rest ever since Sluggy disappeared. The two browns, and the baby, used to sleep together in a small pot for a few weeks now... and this afternoon, the baby is there no more. The strange thing is that I don't see any slime tracks on the outside of the lid though. Depressing.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 13, 2012 21:45:16 GMT
I find the appearance of snails and slugs fascinating. They are so alien compared to humans, and not dramatically different from their profoundly alien ancestors that lived 500 million years ago. The shell, the soft foot and the tentacles have remained a trademark. Snails were there long before the dinosaurs, and they were there long after the reign of dinos as we think of them, giant "lizards", was over*. Snails will probably be around long after humans are gone, slowly sliming their way accross the alien-looking future forest floors, eating the kind of weird plants we can only imagine now. Hopefully, in a million years the then-current sapient gardener has made peace with the gastropod kind.
Snails and slugs are some of the underdogs of the animal kind. They are pests, breed aggressively and have a taste for the same plants as humans. So a lot of people despise them. That gives me an extra incentive to love them.
I love watching a snail or a slug go about its business. Finding a new food item, inspecting it and tasting it. I love the reactions; the tentacles curling down close to a food I assume is particularly tasty, perhaps to get more of that taste with the sensors located at the tips of the eyestalks. Sometimes the stalks get bended backwards, yet the food appears just as appealing. Last night I watched a snail eat sugar snaps for the first time. First the tentacles reached down, as is normal with the yummy foods. The snail kept eating for hours, and as time went by the tentacles started to move back to upright position, then down, finally almost resting on the snail's back! Eventually it fell asleep, with the pod still in its mouth. I should have taken a picture.
Slugs have different, but just as cute expressions. My little slugs' whole head moves when they eat! They will taste all new foods when they first come into contact with them, which seems to be another side of their exploratory nature. Which is something I've come to greatly appreciate. I love watching them explore the terrarium at night. They are not content in very small containers, which has led to some escapades before. Two with a happy ending. One with less so. And, I find them cute in their own, endearing way. Even my very plain and translucent little Deroceras slugs are beautiful. So delicate and fragile little creatures, bravely crawling forward, waving their tiny tentacles, in a world that is little else that lights and shadows in their eyes, yet filled with smells that guide their way. The unhurried determination of the slug, and the snail, is something a lot of people could learn from. It is meditative and calming to stop and observe, and to listen.
That's why I love snails and slugs.
* Dinosaurs are well alive and kicking today, but lizards they aren't. You eat a modern dinosaur, if you visit a well-known fast food restaurant named with three letters.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 13, 2012 13:34:29 GMT
I've fed lychees to my aspersas. I would think GALS like them too.
A food that's all the rage in our terrarium right now is sugar snaps. The aspersas rarely like foods on the first taste (like blueberries, took many tries to get them to eat them) but sugar snaps were gobbled right down with eyestalks glued to the food to inspect it while eating. Even the delish cucumbers couldn't tear the snails away from the sugar snap pods.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 4, 2012 1:15:53 GMT
Might be good to add that when using potting soil, one should use the type that doesn't have pesticides or fertilisers added. It usually says on the package what the soil contains. I also think ness' garden soil point is good. That's what I've done with my aspersas, and they seem happy enough.
Otherwise, looking good.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 4, 2012 0:58:42 GMT
Ooh, stickified! Moar sliminess. Here's two good, bigger resources: Tentacle is the newsletter of the snail department of the Species Survival Commission of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). They have every issue in PDF available online, although the articles lack searchable indexing and to find something one has to resort to the old-fashioned "check the contents listings individually" method. But it's a pretty good read. American Malacological Bulletin is a peer-reviewed journal, and has a searchable index, hurray. Lotsa good info on very specified subjects, as one would expect from a proper science journal. I guess it's handy to post individual links to the issues of Tentacle / research paper, in case someone happens to find something that is relevant to our all interests, despite the links to the main depots being here!
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 4, 2012 0:15:47 GMT
That's a beautiful show, yeah. I found this really good clip of H. pomatia too.A review of mating behavior in slugs of the genus Deroceras (Pulmonata: Agriolimacidae) is what I used to ID my slugs. It's a review of most published material on the mating of Deroceras slugs from the past two centuries, and I found it an awesome read, naturally because my slugs are of this particular genus. And it's a free PDF. Some issues of Tentacle also had good stuff on slug mating that I read up on, but I can't find them now from my journal collection. Last night I witnessed, again, slug mating. It was a lot more aggressive than this, and it's a shame I couldn't video it. Box was next to the bed again, and I couldn't put the lights on as the man didn't want his sleep ruined thanks to my slugs, lol. So I was watching them in the light of my cell phone. They were giving some really nasty bites, gnawing the sides of each other for a few seconds at time and making the other slug writhe... I don't know if it was in pain or ecstasy! But it seemed pretty intense. Yet, it's clearly the way they're supposed to do it. Now I also saw what the review describes as "intense stroking" with the sarcobelum (the proper word for the "penis"), instead of just resting the sarcobelums on the other slug's body like I saw before. It was a really good example of what the literature describes, right from the "follow the leader" game at the beginning, where one slug takes the other for a walk, wagging its tail and stopping to wait if the other lags behind. It also started with some good bites, the "horny" slug approaching the other from behind and starting to bite the tail, to which the other responded by starting to wag it. So it'd seem like there's some sort of communication going on in the bites here, I guess. Oh, btw, the review is from 2007 and thus hasn't separated D. invadens from D. panormitanum yet, as the taxonomic correction was apparently done in 2011. But the mating they describe for panormitanum is obviously that of invadens, it's quite different from the rest in its extremity. As I mentioned before these slugs apparently have a habit of biting each other quite a bit. I first thought they want to kill each other because of it, because they ARE cannibalistic, I have picture proof of this. They can sleep peacefully next to each other, and usually sleep in a cluster of at least three slugs, skin to skin, under pottery shards in my terrarium. But, sometimes when a slug approaches another that has already taken a place to sleep, one of them will be chased away with a bite attack. Sometimes they chase each other away from food with bite attacks. Yet, sometimes they dine quite close to each other without problems. I guess the degree of hunger has something to do with it, though there is enough high-quality protein food available for every slug every day. Maybe this biting, too, is some communication. "Get away from my food!" "I want to be left alone!" Yes, I find them slugs quite fascinating, especially as they're a lot more active right now than my lazy aspersas that only get active at night!
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 3, 2012 22:59:22 GMT
He's MSc in Neurobiology. A friend just got her PhD in Neurobiology, too, and several other folks I know did various fields... I'm basically surrounded by biologists, and I'm the odd one out (Health Sciences). Even more amazing about slugs is that many of the species aren't even closely related, but the loss of shell has happened several times in different clades, with essentially the same end result that makes it look like slugs are related to each other. And, of course, it's still happening in semi-slugs, many which are not closely related. The sluggy body shape must be a good one. Then again, so is the snaily body shape, given it has remained about the same for about 500 mil. years already. Our little lovely slimies are true evolutionary troupers, sticking to their shape and changing where it really matters, ie, species-specific weird behaviour! 65 000 gastropods, 65 000 ways to say "I love you!" I would probably freak out if I got one of those wasps on me, I admit. I'm always targeted by blood-sucking insects so a step up from that... Get it away from meeee! I can just imagine what the ladybird feels... One would wish that the paralysing poison would contain something to numb the nerves, but since it doesn't benefit the wasp in any way to make it less painful for the victim, it doubtfully happens. Even the hunting slugs and snails that push their way into the shell of the victim to eat it are "nice" compared to the paralysis! Oh, hehe, welcome to the ex-tempore biology class, everyone!
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 3, 2012 21:44:49 GMT
Aha I was wondering where this topic went and then forgot about it...
Thanks for the tips so far. I will try sprouting some beans and seeds, and try cress. I think I saw it at the supermarket, so I will try buying it ready first and see if they like it. I guess lentils are OK as sprouts, too, if beans are?
I tried basil (organically grown in a pot, so no fertilisers or pesticides) and it was yummy, though it didn't last very long and resulted in some falling snails as they tried to climb the stalks. Well, they didn't fall very long and hurt themselves. I've also been using root veggie stems successfully.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 3, 2012 20:11:52 GMT
ness put it quite well. I, too, look at the world with the eyes of a biologist (although an amateur one; my BF can have the glory of having the degrees to prove it). I can't hate creatures that are innocent by my human standards, ie, lack the moral viewpoints that we have to understand acts that would merit hatred. There's some really "nasty" species of wasp that lay their eggs inside other living creatures, paralysing them to be the living, fresh food storages of their larvae. I guess such would count as evil acts by human standards, but the wasp's central nervous system is too simple to even begin to process such concepts. It's simply doing what it was evolved to do: procreating and ensuring its offspring have a good start to life, even if it causes pain and suffering to another creature doing so. I don't have to like it, and I don't, but I find it a fascinating example of the almost infinite ways life finds a way on this planet. When it comes to humans, I can understand being afraid of something, but killing the creature because of that? Especially if the creature is smaller than you and couldn't possibly do any harm to you... I have no understanding for people who pour salt on slugs or pull legs off ants just to see them squirm. They may not be capable of human-like rational thought, but even invertebrates feel physical pain, and we humans are capable of recognising the pain of other beings. Even if it's "just a slug" or "just an ant", it's a despicable act from someone with the brain capacity to relate to the feelings, both physical and emotional, of others. It's no less horrible than pouring acid on another human to see how they react, or to take revenge, which is the more common reason of course. Slugs tend to get a lot of hate for some reason, even from people who like snails which I guess is a matter of forgetting where slugs come from. They are just snails that lost their shell, evolving to live without it. Semi-slugs are a good reminder of what the slugs most likely have been like before their current shape, something just between a snail and a slug. What does he want to be? A snail or a slug? A semi-snail, fence-sitter with a shell that is merely decorative? This little fella is almost a slug... shall we call him the three-quarters-slug? That's a very pretty shell you got there, little slug! Show the slugs some love, they're of the same slime and blood as their shelled cousins. As for gardeners... yeah, it can be a bugger if you need to fight over your vegetables with a family of hungry snails/slugs, but there are humane ways to repel them, such as copper fencing. I would even suggest native predatory snails and slugs being introduced to the garden, and let nature go about its business as it would. I believe their slime's smell acts as a repellent to the prey animals, too. On a slightly off-topic matter, here's a very funny parody video of Sir David Attenborough that I found, as the biology-topic got me googling for some clips from his shows... Snail migration I am proud to say that I pick up earthworms that I see on exposed territory, and carry them to safe place, btw. Even if there's other people to see me do it. It has resulted in some rather embarrassing situations in the past, especially that one time that I missed my bus because I was trying to get a worm off the sidewalk... it was a futile attempt, in the end, because the poor worm got upset as I didn't manage to pick it up properly, so I eventually gave up, fearing I would be hurting it more by trying. Snails, too, of course. And slugs. And frogs. Insects, no, unless they are big enough to be actually seen like a dragonfly.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 2, 2012 21:59:36 GMT
It's a nice place to sleep. Soft, green, smells good!
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 2, 2012 21:46:46 GMT
Yeah, they always move clockwise but I'm filming them from outside the terrarium wall, so they appear counter-clockwise. They are on the wall almost where the lid starts and I was below the box, trying to get some sort of angle without losing focus too much.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 2, 2012 21:18:04 GMT
Haha, here's something to view then... Gosh, it's like all my pics are snail pr0nz lately, but I've been tracking their behaviour and taking picture and video footage of them mating to find patterns etc. So here's a quick and bad quality (my video camera is cell phone camera, unfortunately) footage of D. invadens mating dance, with appropriate soundtrack. The tails wag almost to the rhythm of the music, but I didn't bother syncing them fully now.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 2, 2012 20:27:50 GMT
Omnomnom carrot! Cutie pie snaily.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 2, 2012 19:31:28 GMT
Yups, sounds like he was prepping for hibernating. I've noticed my snails doing the same. They've been sluggish all winter, but now they got really slow and inactive as the temps hit below zero, and some are putting up thin barriers for daytime, only coming out every few days, unless I have to move them. It sounds like your snail's barrier isn't as thick as it would be in natural, colder conditions, so perhaps he is half-hibernating, too.
I really shouldn't say "sluggish", though, because my slugs on the other hand are hyperactive even during daytime, and mating and laying eggs like... well, slugs! So that's the real sluggish behaviour!! Some Deroceras species do not hibernate, but die when the temperatures go low enough, only the eggs and some juveniles make it to the next spring. That makes me feel like I should have looked at the balcony for more slugs before the frost came, since I'm apparently giving my little slugs an extended lifespan in captivity. What would they say if they were aware, hmmm?
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 2, 2012 11:25:24 GMT
Looks like somebody has been eating carrots!
Yes, that is snail poo. You can always guess what they've been eating by the colour. Lots of cuttle result in white poo. And it's perfectly ok to post the piccy and ask! Someone with the same question in mind but not posting for some reason will also benefit!
The "anus" (dunno if it's called that in snails...) is near the pneumostoma, the breathing hole. Gastropods go through a kind of twisting of their insides at embryo stage, so all the body parts that are in the lower part of the body in most animals are actually near the head in gastropods.
Usually snails use their mouthparts to guide the poo beneath the foot from where it will be discarded as they continue moving. Sometimes they forget to do this though, and you can see poo hanging from their right side. It's ok to remove it then. I sometimes nab it with tweezers if the snail looks like it's not gonna do anything about it.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Feb 1, 2012 23:35:05 GMT
How do the bananas do in captivity? Do they need redwood forest specific conditions?
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