Shelled Slug

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Shelled Slug

Shelled Slug, Testacella haliotidea

Not evaluated

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
Order:	Pulmonata
Family:	Testacellidae
Genus:	Testacella
Species:	T. haliotidea

Binomial name

Testacella haliotidea
Draparnaud, 1801

The Shelled Slug (Testacella haliotidea) is a rather rare carnivorous slug with a small shell towards the rear. It is common along the western Mediterranean, along the European Atlantic coast and throughout Great Britain apart from northern Scotland. It occurs equally as an exotic terrestrial snail in southern Australia, New Zealand and North America (where it is also called Earshell Slug). This slug is underrecorded in Europe. The distribution data for the USA (Oregon, Wisconsin) and Canada (British Columbia, Nova Scotia) are incomplete.

It is seen mostly in the spring, living in cultivated habitats or on disturbed ground.

It is a large slug, with a length of 12 cm. It has only a small ear-shaped, external shell, less than l cm long, at the tailend of the mantle. It is a very agile, pale brown slug, living mostly under ground or under stones or leaflitter.

Their diet consists mainly of earth worms which they usually attack underground. However, in damp conditions when earth worms are found on the surface they may attack them there. The grip of the needlelike teeth of the radula is such that when the prey retreats to its burrow the slug is also drawn below the surface where it continues to eat the worm.