Oh. Emm. Gee.

[pinkunicorn]

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!

[morningcoffee]

Awww, tiny sluglets! That's great

Perhaps a temporary layer of mosquito net or chiffon taped over the tank to prevent any tiny slug escapes?

[pinkunicorn]

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

[saki114]

Congrats!!!! ;D I've seen snailets before, but SLUGLETTS??? Awesome!!!!! ;D

[pinkunicorn]

Amazing, I'm holding an egg and watching the baby move inside. It's preparing to hatch I think. Shame my camera can't take good enough macro pics.

It has eyestalks out inside the egg and all. It's circling around.

[pinkunicorn]

Here is the little fella in the egg. You could see the eyestalks and the bottom of the foot as it was going round and round inside the egg, slowly but noticeably. In the picture, you can see the eyestalks as the darker bits and just can make out the outline of the body: he's curved to the left, head on the right upper side of the egg and tail below the head.



I put the egg in a visible place, and managed to look at it when he started coming out. I took a series of pictures of him emerging, but sadly most were too blurry to see anything. Here he is almost fully out already, the tip of the tail just slipping out of the remains of the egg.

[ness]

aw wow! Well that's something most of us never get to see!
I really like those photos thanks for posting them.
Your other pictures of the newly hatched slugs are really sweet too

[saki114]

The photos-all of them, are spectacular!!! The sluglett is so tiny and cute!! ;D

[pinkunicorn]

Thanks! I wish I had a better camera, to take better macro photos.... Need to negotiate with the BF if we'd invest together in a pro model, since we both enjoy photography.

Here's more baby slugs, also a picture of the eggs as this egg was, although of a different species. Very cool, nonetheless!

snailstales.blogspot.com/2009/03/baby-is-sooo-cute.html

[rosiesnail2]

COOL! So what breed are the slugs??
I neeeeed a slug

[pinkunicorn]

Mine are Deroceras invadens.

I would recommend trying to find a slug that has a bit longer life cycle than Deroceras slugs, for example... unless you don't mind them living less than a year, sometimes perhaps just a few generations (and generations are quite short, they become mature at a few months age). Banana slugs are super-awesome! Though, I think my slugs are super-awesome, too. But I got them by accident. If I was choosing a slug species on purpose I'd probably go for banana slugs. Or pancake slugs, those are also funny!

[rosiesnail2]

yeah Wanted some but mum won't let me so I need year ish garden/finding slugs

[pinkunicorn]

You may be able to find leopard slugs, too. I'm gonna try to find some myself once it's warm enough for the slugs to come out. They live a few years, and they're a bigger species. Maybe leopard slug babies, too, if I manage to find two!

[saki114]

Feb 25, 2012 22:45:00 GMT pinkunicorn said:

Thanks! I wish I had a better camera, to take better macro photos.... Need to negotiate with the BF if we'd invest together in a pro model, since we both enjoy photography.

Here's more baby slugs, also a picture of the eggs as this egg was, although of a different species. Very cool, nonetheless!

snailstales.blogspot.com/2009/03/baby-is-sooo-cute.html

that slug is soooooo cute! I wish I had really good macro camera to... well, one can only wish lol

[rosiesnail2]

Wow leopard slugs- ok I'll look

[Johnnywho]

Awww congrats on the Sluglets!

[pinkunicorn]

Thanks!

News from the slugarium: I had to clean the tank today and with three dozen little maggots around my usual take-the-animals-out-toss-the-compost-in-the-oven didn't really work... I don't want to roast any babies! So I spent a good few hours removing the soil and the babies whenever I encountered any. I got almost all out, but there's still maybe five hiding. They went into a little yoghurt pot for now, just need to catch the remaining few when I see them. They are so terribly fragile I'm scared to move them. Need to catch them on pieces of food or spoon out the soil they're on.

I also encountered a one-eyed slug baby! It was one of the smallest I've seen... one third the size of the biggest babies, which aren't big to begin with. It's so cool, I hope it makes it to adult. There's plenty of food for everyone so it just needs to eat.

They are eating a lot, I even spotted a tiny string of green poo! And there are visible tiny holes in the cabbage. Cucumber is popular, of course. I'm also giving them tortoise food already, to ensure they grow into strong and healthy slugs.

[ness]

Aw bless! Good luck little one-eyed sluglet. Keep up updated.

[saki114]

That must be cool... ive never seen a 1 eyed slug b4 interesting! ;D

[pinkunicorn]

The poor baby looks a bit like a crooked maggot, lol. It's a shame I didn't have camera at hand when I saw it... It is adorably funny looking. I will take some more pics today. The itty bitties are crawling all over the jar, exploring. And eating. Eating and eating. Sleeping, too. Itty bitties need their beauty sleep!

[pinkunicorn]

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Cyclops the Wondrous One-eyed Sluglet! Like I said, he looks like a maggot, and even moreso in a photo where you can't even see the single eyestalk! I spent a good while figuring out if it's a sluglet I'm holding or something else when I first saw him... but it's 100% sluglet, with one tentacle sticking out to the side. A very small and pale one, one of the smallest. I will try to take a better picture when I next see him. I thought these turned out semi-OK, but when I saw them on the computer... not so great. And by that time he had disappeared already... until next time.



This is a bigger itty bitty, off on an adventure! I like the silhouette, you can actually see the lower pair of tentacles.



Itty bitty noms on a pea pod. His little head went back and forth as he focussed on the nomming task.



Itty bitties. The one with orange spots on it has been nomming on tortoise food. It's the food in its guts showing through the body, hehe.



Moar itty bitties. And another one nomming on tortoise food, I see.



This one is, amazingly enough, taken with my cell phone camera. Itty bitty size comparison!



You can really see the growth in these pictures, comparing to the first ones when the camera wouldn't even focus properly! Some of them are still that size, but others have grown so much I can see some of the distinctive "stripes" this species has on its tail. And the mantles are beginning to show on some of them.

[saki114]

so cute! ;D luv it!!!

[pinkunicorn]

I finally caught a good picture of Mr. Uni-tentacle. He's easy to spot among the bigger siblings! He's doing pretty well, I think. Every time I turn the piece of cucumber over to swap it to a fresh one I see him snacking on with the others. And I think he's grown a little bit from the first time I saw him. At least the camera captures him quite well now!



I've done some counting, and I estimate there's about 50 itty bitties in total. It's quite a busy little yoghurt box!

[pinkunicorn]

The babies are doing good. They've grown SO much that I moved them to the big tank two days ago, and they've made themselves at home! The adults were curious about the little ones, it seemed.

Sadly, Mr. Uni-tentacle seems to have disappeared. As did some others, I am sure, probably consumed by the siblings since I never found any remains. Also, one of the adults just passed away on my hand. She'd been very off-looking all day, and I tried to offer her foods... but she just got slower and slower and wasn't able to hold on to anything... and then I knew she was finally gone as she went stiff. The other one is still going strong, though he's quite old, too. When I found them on Christmas they were just a little bit bigger than the biggest offspring are now, so I guess their age is/was about half a year. My babies have been fed high-protein diet, so I assume they're a bit bigger than wild babies would be.

I have a few nice pics of the adults and babies together, I think, need to upload those for posting.

[jessicamartin]

Ahhh, can't believe that I have missed this thread before.
How lovely of you to get such lovely photos of all of the babies growing up, make sure that you keep us updated with it all.
Are you just going to release them into the wild when your ready? Are they a native species?