Fascinating Facts

• British gardeners use over 400 billion slug pellets every year to help combat the damage slugs cause.
• Slugs have approximately 27,000 teeth – so no wonder they can bite so many holes!
• A cubic metre of garden will on average contain up to 50 slugs.
• Britons spending an estimated £158 million on summer bedding plants each year, including £1 million on hostas
• Slugs are hermaphrodites: they all have male and female reproductive systems. Yes, they can mate with themselves!
• Slugs can stretch to 20 times their normal length enabling them to squeeze through openings to get at food.
• Slugs actually have shells like a snail. Slugs' shells are much smaller and not visible as they are underneath the flesh on their back.
• Slug eggs are laid in clusters of two dozen and are in the soil just about everywhere. They can be there for years and then hatch when conditions are right. It takes moisture to allow them to hatch.
• A slug can travel over a razor blade or sharp edge of glass without cutting itself because of its slime.
• A slug breathes through its skin and just like the insides of our lungs, the skin must be moist to exchange gases. A slug’s slime gathers moisture out of the air like a sponge on damp days and out of the soil under logs on dry days.