Norwich experts call for help with research into invasion of ‘killer’ slugs

Known as the arion vulgaris, these types of slugs hit headlines across the country in 2012 after being discovered by scientists in the city and have made a comeback following warnings earlier this year. Ian Bedford, head of entomology at the John Innes Centre, based near the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, first found the slugs here in East Anglia in 2012 and sent them to a colleague in Aberdeen to be identified.
He and others were finding thousands of the species in their gardens, prompting the creation of the website www.slugwatch.co.uk for people to report sightings and get help.
“Feedback from the website has seen that a lot of people are telling us that they have found one or two in their gardens,” Dr Bedford said.
“But what we are looking for now is people letting us know if they are picking up hundreds of Spanish slugs, so that we can make a note of their postcode.”

Spanish Slug facts

• Scientific name: Arion vulgaris.
• Body colour: Varies from bright orange to reddish brown.
• Size: 8cm-15cm when mature.
• Habitat: This is a non native species of slug and it is now known to be an established species in the UK.
These slugs have an extensive omnivorous diet that includes excrement, dead animals and a variety of crops not normally susceptible to slug feeding. Their population has also grown rapidly because they don’t seem to have many predators as the huge amounts of mucus they produce repels any potential threat.
They can self-fertilise and lay around 300 and 500 eggs each, whereas native slugs lay around 150 eggs each. They can tolerate hotter and dryer environments having adapted to living in the Mediterranean and are also known to push out other slug and snail species to dominate an area due to their large size and high population density.

The slugs started to re-emerge in April last year, but a cold snap killed them off, stopping them from any further breeding.
However, this year’s weather has been much better for them, with Dr-READ MORE LINK-http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/norwich_experts_call_for_help_with_research_into_invasion_of_killer_slugs_1_3760154