Description
The size of the adult slug is 80–120 mm. The colour of the Spanish slug is brownish or reddish brown, or brightly orange. The tentacles are darker. Colouration varies, but not within the same population. Adults differ little from Arion rufus, in contrast to the brightly coloured and banded juveniles that allow reliable determination of this species.
Reproductive system: The atrium is small. The oviduct is large and swollen, with the same diameter as atrium. The spermatheca is spherical, its diameter twice of oviduct. The long, anteriorly swollen oviductus with large longitudinal ligula inside is distinctive of Arion vulgaris.
When disturbed, the slugs will emit copious amounts of mucus. When killed in boiling water (one of several methods used in the fight against the species as an invasive organism), the mucus will colour the water yellow.
Read more about this topic: Spanish Slug
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any other place.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)