I’ve failed miserably at starting seedlings off in trays - I just keep forgetting to water them (though I haven’t given up on trying again, especially living in a zone with such a short growing season). So now I’ve got this seed tray with soil and moss and cobwebs that’s been sitting outside for over a year.
I decided that I was finally going to deal with it and empty the contents into our compost bin, then clean the trays to give growing from seed another go. Well… I picked it up and found a whole colony of slugs living underneath!
We hardly ever get slugs and snails in our garden, which I put down to a combination of our cooler climate and a thriving avian population. Over the years I’ve also developed more of a Zen approach, accepting that our garden is an ecosystem and (thinking back to fifth form biology) diversity = resilience. So, slugs are a-okay.
This time I didn’t just accept the slugs, but was really excited to see them! They had a symmetrical leaf-like pattern, which I’d learned from the Wild Dunedin festival is a sign that it’s a native slug. We have about 30 native species of slugs here in Aotearoa.
Our natives are all in the family Athoracophoridae. They’re referred to as leaf-veined slugs after the pattern on their back, which looks remarkably like the delicate veins of a leaf. They’re nocturnal and eat algae, lichen, and fungi on tree trunks and in leaf litter where they live. They definitely don’t eat our prize cabbages so you don’t have to worry if you find one in your veggie patch!
Like many of our other native plants and animals, they’re terribly under-researched: the Athoracophoridae family is currently under revision, and there are a number of un-named species (if you’re interested in helping solve this problem with our native copper butterflies, you can donate here).
All land slugs have a breathing pore (called a pneumostome) but as you can see it’s more apparent in the leaf-veined slug. It connects to their single lung, and reminds me a bit of the blowholes that whales and dolphins have. They can grow up to six inches long, so perhaps it wouldn’t be a stretch to call them the whales of the gastropod world.
During the day you can find them under logs, rocks, old plant pots, or wherever there’s fungi/lichen nearby. Or you could go outside at night with a torch and search tree trunks and leaf litter… but I’m waiting until the summer months to try this!
Happy hunting,
Zenobia x
You might also like…
iNaturalist Athoracophorinae page - browse the photos, or add your own
How to be Sluggish - an article by Victoria University from 1982 if you want super in-depth slug info
Kōrero: Snails & Slugs - accessible and interesting article about Aotearoa’s about snails, slugs, and semi-slugs by Te Ara
What a remarkable slug is the leaf-backed. Where do you live, Zenobia?
Love your writing! Very interesting - I now have a new respect for slugs, not just "food for birds".