If slugs are so slow, how do they escape predators? Easy – slow them down even more.
Scientists from Newcastle were doing research in the nearby Watagan Mountains when they found a tree frog stuck to a branch. Right next to where it was trapped was a red triangle slug.
The scientists watched it for ten minutes, but the frog couldn’t free itself. They then took the branch, with the frog and slug still attached, back to their lab. The frog was still stuck more than a day later, so they gently removed it from the stick.
It turns out that the slug had released a special, extremely sticky type of mucus. Unlike the slime that slugs normally use to move, this is only created when it is threatened by a predator.
This is one of the first examples of slime being used as a defence mechanism. This discovery could help scientists create new types of glue that get stronger while wet, just like the mucus does.
This article was published in Issue 37 of Double Helix magazine (https://www.csiro.au/en/Education/Double-Helix). Copyright for this article is held by CSIRO.
Lachlan Writes Science 