SLUGS & SNAILS: CELLAR SLUG

What a year for slugs and snails in my garden.  I think they are moving in from all over Yorkshire.  In all my decades of gardening, I've never seen so many.  I've given up on the beer traps because I think the slithering little critters are getting a skinful and then p***ing off to sleep it off where I can't find them.  My container grown hostas, which usually get through summer without too much damage are riddled with massive holes and I cannot decide whether it is the slugs and snails which are doing it (can't see any), or that infernal vine weevil which I can't find either.  For the vine weevil, I am having to resort to a pesticide to kill the weevil as well as the grubs which eat the roots of plants.  I'm not happy.  I even found a number of tiny snails in my outside pot containing ivy today and it's high off the ground.

Slug with pests of its own (mites)

Had a surprise today though while desperately trying to find the reason for the infestation this year.  They say you learn something new every day and today my something new is that the yellow 'Cellar Slug' (also known as Yellow Slug or Tawny Slug) is not considered a garden pest, living mostly on fungi, garden detritus, and even pet food!  So if I find one, I shall allow it to stay.



I don't recall seeing one and so I don't have a photo to share here but apparently you can identify them because they are pale, tawny or yellowish and have a faint pale stripe running down their backs towards the tail end.  Here you can see Cellar Slug a.k.a. Limacus flavus (external Royal Horticultural Society link).  Or at: RHS Slug ID Guide (pdf) and Cellar Slug, Limacus flavus (Wikipedia)



YouTube link (c) George Konstantinou - Cyprus Wildlife tours, 23 June 2018