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A slug on a wall in Kanagawa, Japan.. Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc.The word slug is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced shell, or only a small internal shell, particularly sea slugs and semi-slugs (this is in contrast to the common name snail, which applies to ...
Snails can be found in a very wide range of environments, including ditches, deserts, and the abyssal depths of the sea. Although land snails may be more familiar to laymen, marine snails constitute the majority of snail species, and have much greater diversity and a greater biomass. Numerous kinds of snail can also be found in fresh water.
Gastropods are found in a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial habitats, from deep ocean trenches to deserts. Some of the more familiar and better-known gastropods are terrestrial gastropods (the land snails and slugs). Some live in fresh water, but most named species of gastropods live in a marine environment.
The largest living species is the Giant African Snail or Ghana Tiger Snail (Achatina achatina; Family Achatinidae), which can measure up to 30 cm. [13] [14] The largest land snails of non-tropical Eurasia are endemic Caucasian snails Helix buchi and Helix goderdziana from the south-eastern Black Sea area in Georgia and Turkey; diameter of the ...
The shells of most species of sea snails are spirally coiled. Some, though, have conical shells, and these are often referred to by the common name of limpets. In one unusual family , the shell of the snail has become two hinged plates closely resembling those of a bivalve; this family is sometimes called the "bivalved gastropods".
The black slug is omnivorous, and its diet includes fungi, carrion, earthworms, leaves, stems, dead plant material and dung. The food is shredded into tiny pieces by the radula and is then digested by enzymes. [9] Like other terrestrial slugs, the black slug is a hermaphrodite, preferring to find a mate—often several—but can self-fertilize.
A lot of broken snail shells have been found in the Franchthi Cave, in the Greek Argolis, from the year 10,700 BCE. In Historia de gastronomía (2004), Fernández-Armesto points out the possible reasons: snails are easy to handle, and their cultivation "seems like a natural extension of harvesting".
Later studies demonstrated that the species could survive in suspended animation without food or water for even longer. In 1904, 40 snails were placed in a tin box as part of an experiment. Approximately 8 years later, in 1912, 10 of these snails were found to be still alive. [9]