Elephant Snails don’t look right.
They look like heroic survivors of a brutal mugging, where they got stamped on and shot in the head and the assailants got away with most of its shell which is probably now on its way to China because the Chinese economy has a high demand for snail shell building materials and that’s increasing the price which means unscrupulous bastards are mugging and stamping and shooting.
But they just happen to be really weird snails!
A giant fluorescent pink slug Triboniophorous aff. graeffei found only in the misty Mount Kaputar area of north-western New South Wales, Australia. By day it hides under leaf mould but on rainy nights locals have long reported sightings of hundreds of the astonishing creatures that come out to feed off mould and moss.
Picture: MICHAEL MURPHY/AFP/Getty Images (via Pictures of the day: 29 April 2013 - Telegraph)
This is one of the best slugs.
Eastern Emerald Elysia
Elysia chlorotica is a “solar-powered” marine sea slug that sequesters and retains photosynthetically active chloroplasts from the algae it eats and, remarkably, has incorporated algal genes into its own genetic code. It is emerald green in color often with small red or white markings, has a slender shape typical of members of its genus, and parapodia (lateral “wings”) that fold over its body in life. This sea slug is unique among animals to possess photosynthesis-specific genes and is an extraordinary example of symbiosis between an alga and mollusc as well as a genetic chimera of these two organisms.
More solar sea slugs. Yes, they’re animals, but they do act and even look a lot like plants…
A praying mantis takes a ride on a snail’s back in Seruyan, Indonesia. Macro photographer Nordin Seruyan, who captured the moment in Borneo, says the insect was knocked from a leaf by heavy rainfall and plummeted into a puddle. Luckily it managed to climb onboard a passing snail and hitch a lift to safety.
Lifeguard snail! So cute.
No way to determine the species but I love this type of “shelled slug”…I don’t think any like this are found outside tropical rainforest but I could be wrong.
A simple dome-shaped shell is embedded deep in their back, partially covered by a “lid” of skin. Probably offers a little protection to some vital organs, though either way just having one hard part can discourage some predators who would otherwise love to slurp up a slug.
There are many other “gradients” between what we call a slug and a snail. A shell gives a snail emergency shelter and can help it avoid dessication, but limits its options when it needs to hide, and can be smashed by larger carnivores or a bad fall. A slug might seem less defended, but can squeeze itself into any available crevice and flee where a snail can’t go.
A gastropod like this one has some of the advantages and disadvantages of both!
Puerto Rican Semi-slug (Gaeotis flavolineata)
This is an arboreal semi-slug. Semi-slugs are relatives of snails that seem to be “half way” between snails and slugs. For example, their shells are very lightly calcified, and in some cases reduced in size. Species often have flaps of mantle which partly or wholly cover the shell - as is the case with this species.
(text via: thefeaturedcreature.com) (photos: Alfredo Colon)* I want to make a note that slugs are really just snails without shells. They are all pulmonate terrestrial gastropods, and the adaptation of being shell-less has arisen at different times and in different families amongst land snails. Some slugs are even in the same familes as shelled land snails. - paxon
