Science Musings Discussion
I grew up in a nature-loving family. Yet my mother nearly extirpated the local population of European black slugs (Arion ater), throwing them with astonishing heartlessness into the ocean while leaving the indigenous banana slugs (Ariolimax columbianus)who she believes do not trifle with her gardens.
There are, both reasonably and ironically, various love-a-slug movements on the west coast. See;
http://www.bananaslugstringband.com/
http://www.ucsc.edu/about/
campus...mpus_mascot.asp
The problem is slugs are programmed to do the dirty job of cleaning up ecosystems and human gardens just happen to get in the way. They even eat dog and cat excrement, a talent not to be scoffed at.
And once you look, who wouldn't be entranced in the presence of beings who float about on waves of muscular pulses, who can stretch up to twenty times their length to get through narrow openings, which are hermaphrodites, which have up to 27,000 teeth to munch through the squash, which breathe through a large opening on their sides and which use their slime trails as messages about where Chet's good grub is.
Viewers of that wonderful French film of some years back, Microcosmos, may remember what for me is the most erotic sex scene ever shown on the big screen, of two slugs making whoopee. Talk about sensuality on planet Earth!
But coming under the cover of darkness to eat a fellow's beloved garden is both insult and injury. So, finally, a quote from Jacques Derrida to call on the depths of our humanity, "There is only forgiveness, if there is any, where there is the unforgivable."
Well, Geoff mentioned slug sex first, but I'm the first to link to pictures.
Yow!
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