Feast of Slugs

/

Wet weather the other weekend after a long dry spell, brought out plenty of slugs, including all these caught up in the garden waste. Obviously I had been guilty of neglecting my molluscs, as it turned out there were three new species for the list all in one bin load of garden waste. It’s taken a while to sort this out, as slugs are very confusing. While I should be celebrating slugs as part of the garden biodiversity, there’s enough around that I don’t mind losing a few. It was also interesting to see one of my song thrushes tackling a large black slug, seeming to be pecking out parts of its innards. There are enough snails around here, so I’m presuming thrushes are happy enough to try some slug for a change.

The black slugs (Arion ater) are tremendously variable, from deep black to brown to beige to almost while, all with an orange sole. Hard to believe they are all the same species, but they might be - it’s also hard to tell.

The stripey ones are also quite confusing, but after some study I believe I have Arion hortensis (Garden Slug), Arion distinctus (Common Garden Slug) and Arion fasciatus (Bourguignat's Slug). Arion hortensis has contrasting stripes, where Arion fasciatus is pale grey, almost while towards the sole. Arion distictus is larger and not so striped, with golden flecked back.

Cylindrical Snails

/

Among the other slugs and snails that were swept up in the weekend’s gardening, I came across several of these “cylindrical” snails; more than I usually find around the garden. I identified these as being two different species.

On the left, with its more elongated shape and shiny shell, there is the Slippery Moss Snail (Cochlicopa lubrica, #237)), also known as the Glossy Pillar Snail. With a length of 7 mm, this individual is quite a large one compared to other examples I found. The browner, duller and stubbier snail is the Common Chrysalis Snail (Lauria cylindracea, #563), which is a new species for my garden list. Neither snail is unusual in UK, but they are small and easily overlooked in the leaf litter.

A Souvenir from Chedworth Roman Villa

/

While pulling up some gone-far-too-rampant shrubs from one of the borders last weekend I found lots of snails, including this shell from a Roman or Burgundy Snail (Helix pomatia). This is an edible snail brought to UK by the Romans and still to be found some places in the Cotswold. In the absence of a living specimen I think the shell is probably a souvenir from a trip to the National Trust’s Chedworth Roman Villa, as while they might have been living in UK for hundreds of years, so far this lazy snail didn’t manage to spread very far - unlike many of its mollusc relatives. Too bad! Chedworth by the way is a really nice place to visit for both archaeology and nature, more info here: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/chedworth-roman-villa/features/wildlife-among-the-archaeology

Yanking out overgrown plants, I also found a nice selection of Brown-lipped or Grove Snails (Cepaea nemoralis). These are pretty snails, varying in their colour quite a lot. Apparently they are also edible, but you would need a lot more of them than of their Roman relatives to make a meal.

Small Snails

/

Lots of snails made it through the winter and have come crawling out of garden waste in the composting bin. Strawberry Snail (Trochulus striolatus) on the left, is one of the commonest snails in the garden, but the Girdled Snail (Hygromia cinctella) on the right is a new one for the list (#428). Girdled Snail has a distinctive white stripe around its keel and the shell is smoother than on the similarly-sized Strawberry Snail. It is yet another non-native species, originating in Mediterranean Europe and only discovered in UK in 1950 in Devon. From there it has slowly spread over much of the England, as it has also crawled its way across much of Central and Northern Europe.