And this is why you can't just walk around looking up at the birds all the time! A couple of days ago, I was standing in the middle of the road, staring up to see if there was any movement on the Tawny nest, as you do, and thankfully took a minute to cast my eyes downwards because right there, smack bang in the middle of the road was a slug I've been hoping to see for ages, the Red Triangle slug.
These slugs are the largest native slugs in Australia and are found along the east coast. They feed on microscopic algae on the trunks of trees and on rocks and it would have been lovely to have spotted one doing just that. They're actually really beautiful and come in several different colour forms but I suspect this poor fellow had been dropped from above by a bird.
They have this really interesting defence mechanism where if they are touched on the dorsal or top side, they release loads of really sticky mucous - not the same sort of stuff that leaves the shimmery trail - and I imagine a beak or any mouth closing down on it would be the exact sort of thing that would create such a response! This stuff is so sticky that it can actually act like a sort of superglue that only weakens as it dries out.
There was the usual mucous trail on the road but only in a small area and definitely nothing coming from either side of the road and this one seemed damaged in the head area and its tentacles didn't emerge at all. So yeah, thinking it had been dropped.
I picked it up off the road to prevent it’s already bad day from turning even worse, and I’m happy to admit that watching the breathing pore opening and closing kind of broke my brain! Small things amusing small minds and all that! 😉
Red Triangle Slug
Northern Illawarra
