Pacific Banana Slug
Working alongside mushrooms and other fungi, banana slugs are detritivores that help turn decaying matter into soil humus. They eat leaves, dead plant materials, moss, fungi, and animal droppings and help in the movement of nutrients throughout the forest and prefer mushrooms over other foods, much to the detriment of human mushroom foragers. Because slugs do not have teeth, food is broken down using its ribbon-like radula, which works like a millstone to grind food into smaller and smaller particles that are then ingested. This one was found in a disturbed suburban park in Kent, Washington.
- Copyright
- ©2015
- Image Size
- 6000x4000 / 15.8MB
- Keywords
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America, Animalia, Ariolimacidae, Ariolimacinae, Ariolimax, Ariolimax californicus, Ariolimax columbianus, Ariolimax dolichophallus, Arionoidea, Eupulmonata, Euthyneura, Gastropoda, Heterobranchia, Kent, King County, Mill Creek, Mollusca, PNW, Pacific Banana Slug, Pacific NW, Pacific Northwest, Panpulmonata, Sigmurethra, Stylommatophora, USA, United States, Washington, animal, banana slug, biology, brown, bug, close, close up, closeup, cochlea, crawling, creature, creep, creepy, critter, detail, dirty, fauna, forest, gastropod, gross, head, icky, invertebrate, land slug, mollusc, mollusk, mottled, natural, nature, organism, sliding, slime, slimy, slow, slug, sluggish, snail, spots, spotted, wild, wildlife, winter, woods
- Contained in galleries
- Snails & Mollusks
