Thursday, April 8, 2010

Hermaphrodite Leopard Slugs feast on mushrooms in our yard

:-o
I spotted 2 Leopard Slugs in our backyard last night about 10pm when I took our doggie out for a wee.
These huge slugs, each about the length of my hand, were nibbling on mushrooms.
There were gone about 3 hours later so they seem to slide around quite quickly.
Per Animal Planet, apparently they are Hermaphrodites and have a very strange airborne mating ritual.
The video on Animal planet is fascinating.
How did evolution ever produce this oddity?!
Really.Quite.Weird.
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2 comments:

  1. Paul MitchellApril 8, 2010 at 1:23 PM

    The very first time I saw one of those things, I would leave NZ. Without my stuff, too.

    Very fast, hand-sized slugs? Nasty.

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  2. Lisa G in NZApril 8, 2010 at 4:07 PM

    ha ha Paul! You should see some of the Wetas, snails, spiders, moths or birds... yes, even our pigeons are big down here! (check out some of my other NZ postings)

    guess what though: nothing can really hurt you on land - no snakes (like in Aus), no large carnivores (like USA or elsewhere)... so you can go tramping around in the forestry without any fears. Now offshore, we have some jellyfish and some sharks (well we are in the Pacific ocean)...

    I recommend u watch the Animal Planet video on the slugs, though: really weird!

    thanks for dropping by

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