Time for a mini thread about #slugs! Compared to their externally shelled snail relatives, there’s a preservation bias in natural history museums against slugs. 
But what are slugs you might ask? It’s a handy name for grouping together gastropod molluscs that have fully or partially lost their shells through evolution but “slugs” have evolved many times.
It’s an artificial grouping of animals. The same is true also of “sea slugs” numerous groups of gastropods that have reduced or lost their shell but live in marine environments.
Slug shells? Some slugs still have a small shield-like shell that may not be externally visible. They tend to make up a small proportion of Museum shell collections as they often don’t preserve very well, are quickly broken down in the wild & are extremely fragile once removed.
Another informal term used to describe these animals is semi-slug often used to describe gastropods with small shells that are too small for them to retract into. Here we have a real museum rarity of dry preserved individual slugs...
You can now see why slugs aren’t normally preserved dry like this.
There are just under 50 species of slugs and semi slugs in Britain and Ireland and many colonised parts of Britain and Ireland as glacial ice retreated back North and when the Channel was a river system
Studying and recording our slug fauna gives us a fascinating insight into the natural history of Britain and Ireland. Some species are only found in remnants of old forests and others have thrived in urban environments and famously gardens.
If you’ve been inspired by some of the museum slugs and would like to know more, the @FSCPublications has produced a fantastic identification guide, Slugs of Britain and Ireland, detailing the anatomy, biology & history of these under-appreciated #animals. field-studies-council.org/shop/publicati…
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