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Sticker of Meadow slug
Bug card No. 2800 of 4,939

Meadow slug

Deroceras laeve
Eats: A bit of everythingSnails, slugs and wormsPonds, rivers and shoresNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The meadow slug is a small brown slug that loves wet places. It is the only land snail or slug that goes into the water on purpose, and it can stay underwater for days. It now lives almost all over the world.

Fun fact: this one is not an insect at all, it has no legs! But kids find it on every bug hunt, so it lives in Bug Wiki too.
Lives in
Almost all over the world except Antarctica, in marshes, wet meadows, riversides and greenhouses
Length
1.5 to 2.5 cm (0.59 to 0.98 in)
Top speed
about 0.01 km/h (0.01 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Wash your hands after touching one, like after touching any wild animal.
What does it eat?
It mostly eats plants, both fresh and dead, but it can also eat eggs and small insects.
For real!Photo of Meadow slug
Picture by Geyejun. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Meadow slug about 2.5 cm long (0.98 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 4 grains of rice in a rowneeds 6 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Meadow slug compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its eggs can survive underwater, and babies can even hatch underwater and climb up to the surface.

2

Its whole life is very short: it can grow up in less than a month and lives at most a year.

3

There can be up to five families of them in a single year.

4

Newly hatched slugs are only 3 to 5 millimetres long and see-through with a pink tint.

5

It can be a pest in greenhouses, where it is always damp.

you asked

Most asked questions about Meadow slug

?Is the meadow slug harmful?

Not to people. It can be a pest in greenhouses, where it nibbles plants.

?Can the meadow slug swim?

It goes into water on purpose and can survive for days underwater, which is very unusual for a land slug.

?How big is the meadow slug?

Small, about 15 to 25 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Deroceras laeve
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Agriolimacidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Agriolimacidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Marsh slug

Where the facts come from

  1. Deroceras laeve (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Geyejun. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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Honey jarfor grown-ups