Subject: Slug from Lesser Antilles
Location: Saint Martin, West Indies
January 18, 2013 6:18 am
Hi.
I wonder if you might know anyone who could identify this slug. It’s from Saint Martin in the Lesser Antilles. The more common slug here is the Caribbean leatherleaf (Sarasinula plebeia), which is very different in appearance.
Thanks!
Signature: Marc AuMarc
Slug
Hi Marc,
Though we do not know the answer, we are posting your image. Susan J. Hewitt often writes in to identify our Molluscs. We would recommend that you either monitor this posting on a regular basis or even better, provide a comment to the posting so that you will be informed of future activity with the posting.
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Location: West Indies
This appears to be a very young juvenile, and it appears to be closely related to the leatherleaf slugs, because the mantle covers the whole entire body and foot of the slug including its head. On the other hand it seems to be translucent and narrow with a pointed tail.
How big is it, and do they get a lot larger than this?
If this is indeed a veronicellid, the only way to identify them to species level is to do a dissection of an adult and examine details of the genitalia. I don’t know enough to help you with this identification, but you could perhaps try asking one or more of the authors of this piece of research:
http://www.zoologischemededelingen.nl/83/nr03/a13
Thanks so much Susan, for your expertise in Molluscs.
Hi Susan, I sent in the photo. I saw a few of these, and they are not so small, perhaps 3-6 centimeters depending on how stretched out they were. By comparison, I have seen juvenile leatherleafs that are much smaller, 1 cm or less, but look exactly like adults in color, texture, etc.
I guess I would need to see more images (and crisper, better illuminated images) to say anything else about these slugs. If they have a mantle that covers only their mid-section or their front end, so it looks a bit like a saddle, then that opens a lot of more possibilities, like maybe a species in the Limacidae. But those slugs would have four tentacles, a second smaller pair under the larger upper ones.
Thanks Susan.
Thanks, Susan. I can try to get more photos of these guys. For your reference, you can see some full-resolution photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theactionitems/7728525818/sizes/o/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theactionitems/7728651966/sizes/o/in/photostream/
In the photo at the second link you can see the second, smaller pair of antennae beneath the larger ones.
OK Mark. Try to photograph the largest one of these you can find, and try to make sure the whole body is in focus. You may want to take a small ruler along with you so you can place it next to the slug for scale.
Do you mainly find them in places like gardens, fields, and other disturbed areas? Or do you find them only in the wildest parts of the island?
And are they on trees on under logs on the ground, or what?
If it’s difficult to photograph them in the wild (perhaps they only come out at night and after rain?) then maybe you could take a jar with you and put some damp vegetation in it, and that way you could take the slug home to photograph it, and then the next day (or night) return it to where it lived.
So far, I have only seen them at night in a ravine on the tallest hill of the island, the only place where there’s some broadleaf forest on St. Martin. I may actually be there tonight, so I will try to get some additional photos.
OK… then it sounds as if they are most likely native to the island if the hill is really a wild environment (Pic Paradis I assume?) and the vegetation there hasn’t really been much altered by human influence. I am by no means an expert on the Caribbean tropical land gastropod fauna, especially not the slugs, but maybe I can try to get in contact with someone who might know enough to be able to say what they are. It’s even possible that they could be something endemic to St. Martin. You are talking about the French half of the island, I assume?
Yes, it is Pic Paradis, on the French side of the island. This slug is probably found other places, but Pic Paradis is one of the easiest forested spots to walk through at night. I believe Alejandro Sanchez has seen similar slugs on Puerto Rico, but he also hasn’t been able to ID them yet.