Got to admit, the pressure of following up a very popular, much liked, much shared post such as the Cicada Moult post is huge. I mean, how do you possibly follow up something as awesome as that? Well. I um, I suppose I have this, ah, slug...😂🙌
I first found this guy very early Saturday morning, dragging my butt out of bed, the morning after a big night before. Now, I wear glasses so I'm used to not having great eyesight and I'm also getting on a bit so expect things to not always work as well as they used to. So this slug was obviously on the ground and was feasting on the remains of snail so I also had to get on the ground. Ha! Me. On the ground. On rocks and concrete. In my pyjamas. On a muggy morning. A tad fuzzy headed from maybe one too many delicious glasses of red. But down on the ground I crawled, face to camera, camera to slug.
And then it happened, my vision changed. At first I just blinked a bit faster. But a white fog started to rise firstly over my right eye and then my left. I began to panic. I sat up and attempted to look around, doing that stare into the distance thing you do to relax your eyes. It didn't work; if anything my vision continued to deteriorate. I dragged myself to my feet and started to stumble inside, tears beginning to prick my eyes, my breathing fast. And then it dawned on me. Yeah, it was just my glasses fogging up from the heat 😂🤓I tell you, I am not designed for physical exertion!
But I loved this Leopard Slug so much, I went out again that night and found several. Their patterns are absolutely beautiful, sure they are big ball of mucous - up to 20cm in length - but they are totally lovely, and kind of look a tad goofy in some of the photos and how can you not love that? Plus they don't eat your garden, preferring algae and mosses and dead plant and animal material, think of them as a lawn clean up crew. But just between you and me, what I'm really hoping for is to capture them mating. It really is next level, with the two hermaphodites entwining together on a mucous rope, their penises, their VERY long penises then entwining until they finally transfer their sperm, each fertilising the other until one drops to the ground and the other one eats the mucous thread they were hanging from. Sweet. If you guys thought the cicada shed was good, I'm guessing you're going to love slug sex!
Leopard Slug
Northern Illawarra
