Slugs only use a few phrases from the native language of whatever country they are living in, thus, they have a fairly limited vocabulary.
Just kidding! The following is a list of interesting terms about slugs and snails.
In no particular order:
- Aestivation: Temporary survival strategy of slowed metabolism within a papery membrane in order to wait out dry or cold weather.
- Pneumostome: The breathing hole leading to the lungs. Normally on the slugs right side.
- Gastropod: “Stomach-footed”
- Carina: any keel-like anatomical ridge. prominent on some slug secies.
- Hermaphrodite: Having both male and female reproductive organs
- Self-amputation: Spontaneous dropping of a body part, (the tail, in the slug) as an escape tactic
- Sensory tentacles: The feeling and tasting appendages near the slug’s mouth
- Mantle: Cloak-like covering on front upper half of slug’s body
- Mullusca: Phylum that includes snails, slugs, clams and oysters. They are all molluscs.
- Caffeine: A natural pesticide that can paralyze and kill small snails and slugs
- Banana Slug: Large colorful slug sometimes reaching 10” common in the Pacific Northwest
- Pulmonate: Terrestrial, living on the land
- Detrivores: eating decaying vegetable material
- Carnivore: eating other slugs, snails or earthworms
- Radula: a rough tongue-like organ
- Denticles: the thousands of tiny teeth that cover the radula
- Invertebrates: animals with no backbone, like the slug
- Hygroscopic: water absorbing, like slug mucus (This is why slime is so difficult to wash off)
- Vestigial: an evolutionary left-over that now serves little purpose