Consider the Lowly Slug~

I like to hit on various themes in my artwork. Some of them are edgey, some are educational or even mundane, while others might be erotic or angsty. One theme that I believe has brought some joy to the world has been my ongoing garden slugs series!

Yes, the lowly creature of the garden, despised for its voracious appetite for vegetation, and loathed for its slimy, slithery, jelly-like body. Since we are now at the end of the growing season, and the level of anger directed at slugs must surely be ebbing for the time being, I’d just like to slip in a few words about this fascinating member of the phylum Mollusca, entering through the perspective of my artistic study of their form. 

What is a Slug?

It’s fun to watch people encounter my little life-size clay slug figurines. They will invariably smile, and if they are with someone else they will go, “Look – slugs!” Sometimes people will say, “Look – snails!” to which I will say, “no, these are slugs; they are unhoused snails.” Snails and slugs are part of the same family, along with oysters, clams, octopus and squid. In fact, slugs still have a vestigial shell beneath their skin indicating their evolution from snails. 

Imparting character and personality to a half ounce lump of clay is a little tricky, but I’ve developed some techniques in 20 years of sculpting them. First, there are several basic attitudes of slug-dom. One is the perky, curious look about, with the whole upper body lifted up and reared back to check things out. Then there is the stre-e-e-e-tch, where the slug extends itself horizontally to an amazing length, keeping the entire underneath of itself pressed against the ground. There is the defensive huddle, which is the opposite attitude, where the slug becomes as short as possible and is just basically a hump. 

The curious attitude is the most popular. I do not bother making a depressed looking slug; that would just be too sad. I have also taken to anthropomorphizing them with the addition of a smiling mouth, and a little pink tongue, and “arms” that clutch a tiny red heart (I call them “sentimental slimers.”)

Their Movements

So, about slugs: how the heck do slugs move around? They have a “foot” which is basically the whole underside of their body. Bands of muscle fibers going in two different directions alternate expanding or contracting and that’s what moves them around. The mucus extruded from two places underneath helps provide traction and protection from sharp things. Slugs can move across crushed glass or the edge of a razor without harm! But they won’t win any races. They are notoriously slow, but just how slow is debatable: sources I have looked at online have clocked slugs going anywhere from 6 inches to 30 feet an hour.

Physical Properties of Slugs

The mucus secretion is the thing that people find most repugnant about slugs. When you try to wash it off, it seems to make even more slime. That’s because the mucus absorbs water (this makes sense – nothing is more dangerous to a slug than drying out.) If you want to clean your hands after touching a slug, it would be best to rub them together until the mucus pills up like rubber cement. 

Another use for this mucus is navigation. Slugs can find each other and slither their way home by following this trail. There are even several varieties of mucus made by a single slug, with a different kind for tracking, one for clinging to vertical surfaces, one for sex, etc. 

They are in touch with the world through sensory glands all over their bodies. That makes it an extremely cruel and painful death for them to be“salted,” one of the traditional methods of slug disposal. (This is also bad for the soil.) Their eyes, located on stalks at the top of their head, can only see shapes dimly, and sensitive feeler stalks located beneath the eyes collect information on the immediate environment.

Of course, they have a mouth, as anyone who has battled slug damage in the garden knows too well. They rasp their food (and sometimes each other) with their “radula,” a ribbon with rows of backward pointing teeth, a feature unique to mollusks. They rasp several times their body weight in food every day. So they don’t have the little pink tongue that I put in my figurines.

Slugs are hermaphrodites, able to mate with themselves if necessary, but preferring consensual relations with a another slug. They will each release and receive sperm, and later lay fertile eggs in clutches of 3 to 50. Due to their oversized sex organs and sticky mucus, they sometimes have trouble separating after sex, so occasionally one slug will gnaw off the penis of the other, who will then only mate in a female capacity. 

The mating rituals in some types of slugs can be very elaborate and lengthly.You can see fantastic videos on YouTube of great grey slugs corkscrewing around each other while suspended in the air from a strong thread of slime. 

Varieties

There are some very odd varieties of slugs, most of which live in the northwest part of the US where the weather stays moist more months of the year. Most people have heard of the banana slug, which can grow up to 10 inches long and be yellow. The European black slug curls up into a ball when attacked and likes the strawberry crop of the state of Washington. Then you have your great grey garden slug with leopard spots that practices cannibalism. 

There is one variety that self-amputates its tail when attacked. Another will swing its tail vigorously in defense. Yet another will secrete a special slime that gags predators.

Slugs have lots of predators because they are a tasty, protein-packed snack. Birds, including hens and ducks, love them, as do hedgehogs, shrews, frogs, toads, ground beetles and newts and more. 

Dealing with Slugs

If your garden is being eaten by slugs, you can go out and hand pick them off your plants during the night. Because they shouldn’t dry out, slugs are most active at night, and huddle under leaves, rocks, logs and other places during the day. 

Most people prefer to bait them into traps such as shallow trays of beer. This is a nice way to go, very preferable to being salted to death. Slug poisons are available but these are also toxic to many creatures including humans so their use is discouraged. 

You could also defend your garden by planting things that slugs do not like as a barrier, (like juniper, bleeding hearts, ivy, and ferns)or by surrounding plants with copper strips which will give the little guys a shock. You could also create a sacrificial garden area where you encourage slugs to feast on the plant varieties they especially like, in the hope that they will leave the rest of the garden alone. But they are likely to treat this as an appetizer for a larger meal. I have read about putting slugs in a blender, and then spreading the ground up creatures around the garden as deterrent to other slugs. Too grisley, don’t you think? And would you want to use that blender for your smoothie afterwards? 

On the brighter side, slugs aid soil decomposition and their poops are good fertilizer. Plus they provide artistic inspiration for myself and several other creative slug lovers that I know of in the region. For instance, there is a jeweler who makes bronze slug rings and necklaces, and there are several children’s books featuring slug characters.

How it Started

Though they are almost universally loathed, they seem a good natured sort of creature to me. In comparison to hornets or wasps or snakes, for instance, they are downright huggable. When they stretch out and explore with their tentacles, they have such a curious, cute look. I made my first slug figurines on a lark, for a garden-themed members show at the old Arts Council of Franklin County around 2002. I thought it would be funny to bring garden pests to the exhibit, and people liked them so much that I just kept making them afterwards. 

The Watch Slug

Townspeople were for a few years under the benign watch of a very large “gastropoda pulmonata” above the doorway of the old Nina’s Nook on Avenue A. The four foot long slug with solar-powered eyeballs didn’t survive the pandemic, and neither did the Nook, but these days you can find my various slug creations in Turners Falls at LOOT and at the Shelburne Falls Arts Coop. I also make cuddly brightly colored slug stuffies, including some mutant ones with three eyes, and with ironic intent, ceramic slug planters! Lately I’ve been working on a new twist: vintage-camper-inspired “Snail Conversion Kits” that attach like a shell on the back of the stuffies.