To quote Ogden Nash 'God in his mercy made the fly, and then forgot to tell us why' and from the gardener's point of view the same is true of snails and their partners in slime, slugs.
- All slugs were once snails. They have lost their shells and replaced them with a layer of mucus.
- Some snails follow each other's trails because they can use the remaining goo to help them slide along, rather than having to make a lots of expensive fresh material.
- Snails carry human blood-group substances on their cells (nobody knows why) and they are sometimes used in blood-group testing.
- Most slugs and snails are hermaphrodites, boy-girl meets girl-boy, it can take hours of probing to decide who wins.
- Some hermaphrodite slugs bite off the penis of a rival to turn it into a female (which is convenient for the winner, the next time they meet).
Some ideas for controlling slugs and snails include the traditional:
- shift planks and stones which give the creatures a place to snooze during the day;
- do not grow hostas but turn to tough species such as foxgloves or fuchsias;
- drown them in pitfall traps willed with soapy water or pick them up one by one to suffer the same fate;
- erect a copper barrier or electric fence around your most precious plants;
- Another approach is to be kind to hedgehogs and frogs, keen slug-eaters both - and encourage the song thrush.
- The latest trick is biological control, the release of a nematode worm found wild around the Mediterranean that attacks molluscs. However, is it safe to introduce an alien predator?
Or ... give up ... ? After all snails make a popular snack in France and Italy!
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