Button's banana slug
Ariolimax buttoni
Eats: Leftovers and dead thingsSnails, slugs and wormsForests and woodsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin
Button's banana slug is a big, soft slug with no shell at all. It is yellowish tan, just like a banana, and can be spotty or plain. It glides along on one big foot on a layer of its own slime.
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
The West Coast of the United States
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless, but do not lick it or put it in your mouth. Its slime is sticky and can make a mouth feel numb, so wash your hands after touching one.
What does it eat?
It eats dead leaves and other dead plant bits on the forest floor, and grinds them up with a tongue full of tiny teeth.
How fast is it?
Button's banana slug about 0.02 km/h (0.01 mph)
A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Its slime tastes bad and makes the mouth of an animal that bites it go numb. That keeps enemies away.
2
It breathes through a little hole on the side of its body that it can open and close.
3
Each banana slug is both a mum and a dad at the same time.
4
It lives for about two and a half years.
you asked
Most asked questions about Button's banana slug
?Why is it called a banana slug?
Because its yellowish tan colour looks just like a banana.
?What do banana slugs eat?
Dead leaves and other dead plant material. They help clean up the forest floor.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ariolimax buttoni
- Group
- Snails, slugs and worms
- Family
- Ariolimacidae
- Classification
- Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Ariolimacidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Ariolimax buttoni (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by iNaturalist user: moranat. CC0, 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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