Behaviour

Abstract

Most slugs are omnivorous, Taylor (1902–1907) for example, described how M. gagates rejected only 22 out of 195 different foods offered to it while A. ater refused 39 out of 197 foods. Frömming (1954) provided a great deal of information about the range of plants accepted by slugs and their preferences and described A. ater as a polyphagous species. When A. hortensis, A. circumscriptus and A. intermedius were offered leaves and flowers from 40 wild plants, each species attacked at least 90% of the plants with A. hortensis feeding on a part of every plant offered. The food preferences of each of the Arion species were generally similar. A rather different result was obtained when four species of Limax were offered material from 29 ornamental plants. While L. maximus and L. marginata attacked over two-thirds of the plants, L. flavus and L. tenellus were more restricted in their feeding behaviour. Limax flavus fed only on about a third of the plants offered and restricted itself to the bulb or stem in most instances while L. tenellus caused slight damage to only four of the plant species offered. Taylor concluded that L. flavus did not generally eat green plant material and that L. tenellus, a rather local species living in old woodland, fed almost entirely on fungi.