Knowra Slug Slug A slug is a gastropod mollusk with a reduced internal shell or no visible shell. Its soft, unsegmented body moves on a muscular foot and is usually covered in mucus.
Gastropoda : The mollusk class that includes snails, slugs, limpets, and their relatives. Slugs are shell-reduced members of this diverse mollusk class.
Gastropod locomotion : Movement by gastropods, commonly driven by muscular waves along the ventral foot. Slug locomotion depends on foot contractions coupled with a lubricating mucus trail.
Land snail : A terrestrial gastropod that typically carries a conspicuous external shell. Land snails show the external-shell condition reduced or absent in slugs.
Leopard slug : A large European slug, Limax maximus, recognized by dark spots or stripes on its pale body. Its elaborate courtship includes mating while suspended from a mucus thread.
Mollusca : The animal phylum containing gastropods, bivalves, cephalopods, and several smaller groups. This broader body plan includes the gastropod lineage from which slugs arose.
Mucus : A slippery secretion composed mainly of water and mucin proteins, produced by mucous glands. Slug mucus reduces friction, aids adhesion, and helps limit injury during movement.
Sea slug : A marine gastropod commonly lacking a large external shell, including nudibranchs and related forms. The name covers marine shell-reduced gastropods, distinct from terrestrial slugs in many lineages.
Banana slug : A large, brightly colored terrestrial slug native to the Pacific coastal forests of North America. It illustrates the prominent role of slugs in moist forest ecosystems.
Mantle (mollusc) : A tissue layer in mollusks that secretes shell material and often forms a mantle cavity. In many slugs, the mantle remains even when the shell is reduced or internal.
Pneumostome : An external opening into the respiratory cavity of many air-breathing land gastropods. In many land slugs, this opening carries air to the lung-like mantle cavity.
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