Super slugs

I have heard all about the so called super slugs that have become a real nuisance in Spain. This morning I went out with my dogs as usual. The first part of the walk takes me along a road. I saw something on the road surface, and wondered what it was. I went close to it and looked. It was a large brown slug. It was at least 15cm long and really quite thick. So I squished it. After all, slugs and snails are the bane of my life when trying to keep many of our plants and vegetables alive. I have seen some pretty big ones already but this comes as something of a shock.


Anyway, I had a good search around on the web and found that these 'Spanish Slugs' produce around twice as many eggs, something like 4000, as native slugs and have a wide ranging omnivorous diet including excrement, dead animals and crops and plants that are not normally susceptible to slugs. That may just explain away the extent of damage to some of our border plants. The lupins are gone, delphinium just stumps, verbascum beyond saving and even rudbeckia a total mess.


Does anybody, just anybody out there have any ideas? It is a constant battle with slugs and snails but if we now have these monsters I despair.

I always thought Suggs was super & created special Madness when he fronted the band ;-)

I think they compensate for the lack of a house by producing much more slime.

I have a bag of molluscs under my desk at work as I type this - I'll release them near the local pond at lunchtime.

Slugs are good bait for chub by the way - coincidentally a famously inedible fish.

This lot probably slurps down the lot and asks for a chaser!

Jeremy, I can find various types of snail by the hundreds at any time, regular slugs are numerous too. The big bu**ers are easy to find early. I found eight of them immediately at one flower bed, 12 to 15cm each. A fork did for them.

Criocère du lis, lily beetle, is not present here. So eliminated that before this 'nice' surprise.

I looked at web info on the creatures (not Wiki but real data). The Spanish Min of Agriculture has an experiment where a putrefying rabbit carcass was put in with 20 of them of the 15-18cm range. It was bare bones on the sixth day! Left with six maize plants full grown but unripe, the same number and size reduced them to ground level in four days.

As for your idea Bruce, I've left some from yesterday's spearing session with stuff I put our for the magpies, rooks and other birds who will eat anything. They were not touched.

Ugh. Aren't you supposed to make a trap baited with beer they drown in, drunk? (Or is that just an old wives' tale?)

I loathe slugs, vile repulsive creatures - very unfair really when they are actually no worse than snails & snails get a better press just because they have a house. There must be a reason we don't eat them.

If they're here, they're here! I'd suggest thinking of a tasty recipe!

Where lilies are concerned, I would be looking for lily beetles - either the bright red adults or more likely the larvae which can be difficult to see because they cover themselves in their own poo.

In my own small garden (in the UK), I manage quite well by relocating when they stray from the rubbish pile (or sometimes from there ) and discover my plants - plus some wildlife-friendly iron phosphate pellets sparingly used around the perimeter.

I would never gratuitously kill creatures out in the wild. Were it not for slugs and snails, we would be wading through vegetable matter.

Been looking and there they are where the hollyhocks should be, some lilies are looking like lace work too.