Giant Black Slug

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Giant black slugs are a fictional species of carnivorous gastropods featured in Shaun Hutsons horror novels Slugs, Breeding Ground and the 1988 film of the same name. They are often seen by James Herbert fans as rip-offs of the Giant Black Rats.

[edit] Biology

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Superficially and internally, the giant blacks are indistinguishable from the ordinary black slug, save for their considerably greater size ranging from 5 to 8 inches in length. This has led to the theory that they are in fact the product of hybridization by the black slugs and one of three native carnivorous slugs in Britain. Unlike their alleged flesh eating parent species which limit themselves to earthworms, the giant blacks are social hunters that travel in large groups, engulfing and devouring large prey alive through sheer weight of numbers. Also unlike other slugs, the mucus they produce to aide their mobility contains a neurotoxin which if ingested causes symptoms similar to rabies before finally killing the unfortunate host. Their mucus glands are especially large and allow the giant blacks to survive hot and arid environments, though damp conditions are still required for their eggs to develop. Their bloodstream is infested with unusually large parasitic Schistosomas which if swallowed, will incubate within the hosts brain before growing large enough to cause death.

[edit] Movie Portrayal

In the 1988 film Slugs, rather than being hybrid slugs from Britain, the movie giant blacks are toxic waste spawned slugs from America. Though the book specifically stated that the slugs were virtually identical to the ordinary black slugs, their movie counterparts possessed anatomically incorrect mouths with canine teeth.