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Sticker of Worm slug
Bug card No. 4843 of 4,939

Worm slug

Boettgerilla pallens
Eats: A bit of everythingSnails, slugs and wormsGardens and meadowsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The worm slug is a very thin, pale grey slug that looks almost like an earthworm. It can be 6 centimetres long but only 3 millimetres wide. It spends most of its life underground.

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
First from the Caucasus mountains, now in most of Europe and some parts of Asia and America, in gardens, fields and woods
Length
6 cm (2.4 in)
Top speed
about 0.02 km/h (0.01 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Wash your hands after touching it, like after touching any wild animal.
What does it eat?
It takes a few nibbles of rotting bits in the soil, worm droppings or other slugs' eggs, and then moves on. Sometimes it comes up at night to hunt snails.
For real!Photo of Worm slug
Picture by Jozef Grego. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Worm slug about 6 cm long (2.4 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
as long as 2 toy building bricks in a rowneeds 3 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Worm slug compared to YOU?

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

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It slides through earthworm tunnels in the soil, usually 2 to 20 centimetres under the ground.

2

It has a tiny shell, only a few millimetres long, hidden at the back end of its body.

3

It came from the Caucasus mountains and has spread across most of Europe and even to America in the last 70 years.

4

Babies are yellowish or dirty white and turn grey as they grow up.

5

It quickly crawls away from bright light.

you asked

Most asked questions about Worm slug

?Is the worm slug a worm?

No. It is a slug, a relative of snails. It just has a long, thin body like a worm.

?Is the worm slug a garden pest?

Hardly ever. It lives mostly underground and only takes small nibbles of food.

?How big is a worm slug?

Up to 6 centimetres long but only about 3 millimetres wide.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Boettgerilla pallens
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Boettgerillidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Boettgerillidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia, North America, South America

Where the facts come from

  1. Boettgerilla pallens (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 Jozef Grego. Public domain, 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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