The leopard slugs (Limax maximus) haven't been around for a while. I thought the drought might have finally achieved what the neighbours' snail pellets and beer traps have failed to do. But last night—on a very late wander around the garden—I found not only leopard slugs in abundance but also Limacus flavus. They were stuffing themselves with the caterpillar- contaminated cereal products that I'd emptied onto the compost heap. Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?Cetacean biologists can identify individual whales by the shape of their tail flukes*. I wonder whether similar criteria can be applied to leopard slugs? The markings on the mantles of these three are different. I'll go out again tonight and see whether I encounter the same individuals again. This time I'll photograph the mantles from directly above, so I can make useful comparisons between them. (Useful, of course, being a relative term.)
And then I'll have to give them names.
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* Which once led me into a very strange conversation with a whaleologist. I thought he was talking about intestinal worms ...
