04.17.2009
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| Feeling Sluggish
 Quote: Slugs don't sting; they don't suck our blood. Yet when the subject of repulsive creatures comes up, slugs are often the first ones that crawl to mind.
The slug physique is not appealing—one broad muscular foot topped with a gut (thus the class name gastropod). But what makes slugs so uniquely unattractive is their slime—a soft, slippery mucous coating that allows the animals to undulate along the ground with wavelike contractions. Anyone who has picked up slugs in the garden without gloves knows how persistent and clingy the stuff is, nearly impossible to wash off.
The slug creates its slime by secreting a mixture of proteins and sugars through its foot and combining it with water. The stuff turns into something that manages to be a liquid while the slug is moving and stiffens like drying rubber cement when the slug stands still. (MIT scientists are still trying to figure out just how that works.) In a moderately sticky form, the slime gives the creature the ability to travel upside down or up your screen door. Slime at any viscosity serves to discourage the slug's predators—birds, box turtles, and snakes as well as small mammals. | http://www.slate.com/id/2216124/?GT1=38002  |
God bless you and keep you safe out there
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