Friday, October 12, 2012

New Slug Species

Flipping back through my photos, I came upon these I took of a small slug, which I haven't posted:


Obviously this slug is NOT Lehmannia valentiana. I believe it to be a member of the species Deroceras laeve (the marsh slug, meadow slug, or brown slug). If you read the fact sheet here: http://idtools.org/id/mollusc/factsheet.php?name=Deroceras%20laeve, you'll find that these slugs are small (meaning this one is not necessarily a juvenile), have a smoky, bluish-black, yellowish color with obvious ridges and grooves along their bodies, and lay tiny, translucent eggs in small clutches. 


However, the yellow patch on its mantle also reminds me of Deroceras panormitanum (longneck field slug, brown field slug), which has a light spot over the lung, although that species is more common in the western US. From these photos it's difficult to tell where the pneumostome is located.


According to Terrestrial Mollusc Tool, D. laeve can be distinguished from D. panormitanum by the slope of the tail, the former's being bluntly rounded and the latter's tapering to a point. I don't know if that's always a certain way to make an ID. Here's a photo where you can clearly see the tail:


Unfortunately this is the only slug of this particular appearance that I've seen. 

http://www.jaxshells.org/slugb.htm (more photos of D. laeve)
http://www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de/zooweb/servlet/AnimalBase/home/species?id=417 (good info on D. laeve)
http://academic.evergreen.edu/projects/ants/TESCBiota/mollusc/key/der_pan/der_pan.htm (D. panormitanum)
http://idtools.org/id/mollusc/factsheet.php?name=Deroceras%20panormitanum (D. panormitanum)
http://www.senckenberg.de/files/content/forschung/abteilung/zoologie/malakologie/malak/hutch/hutchpub/fom3.pdf (Heike Reise's article "Deroceras panormitanum and Congeners from Malta and Sicily, with a Redescription of the Widespread Pest Slug as Deroceras Invadens n. Sp.")

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