A Cold, Slimy Surprise

I decided to tackle some tall weeds today (and uncover the few desirable plants that were being choked to death). I figured the honey bees could start pollinating some legitimate flowers instead of propagating these rank things. But as I was dumping the discarded material into a bag, I felt something cold and slimy on my hand. Lo and behold, I had woken up a juvenile Three-band Slug (Lehmannia valentiana)! Now lately I've haven't expected to come across any of our slugs in the daytime, as it's still not consistently warm enough for them to sleep in exposed areas. But there he was, clinging to a blade of grass, and sliming profusely. Yet despite the involuntary mucus production, he didn't seem particularly afraid of me. He stuck his little cephalic tentacles out and proceeded to investigate his new environment. In fact, in his explorations he left a nice slime trail across my skin. After watching him awhile, I set him down near where most of the slugs live, in the hopes that he might find some fellows to hang out with.

Though the nights have been warmer recently, I still don't see many slugs about. Occasionally, when it rains, the babies will congregate on the lattice around the bottom of the porch, but that's about it. Incidentally, I spotted a baby albino the other night. I wonder how many adult albinos we'll have in the population by summertime? I'd assumed we had just the one before...Could I have been mistaken? It would be fascinating to find out the average percentage of albinos per population.