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Sticker of Greenhouse slug
Bug card No. 2109 of 4,939

Greenhouse slug

Milax gagates
Eats: PlantsSnails, slugs and wormsGardens and meadowsNo legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The greenhouse slug is a dark grey to black slug with no shell. It has a ridge called a keel running along its back, like the bottom of a boat. It hides under stones and in damp soil during the day.

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 North Africa, Spain and France, now in gardens almost all over the world
Length
5 cm (2 in)
Top speed
about 0.02 km/h (0.01 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Gardeners do not like it because it eats their plants.
What does it eat?
It eats fresh plants and their roots. Sometimes it munches on carrots and potatoes in gardens.
For real!Photo of Greenhouse slug
Picture by Justin Johnsen. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Greenhouse slug about 5 cm long (2 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 8 grains of rice in a rowas long as 1.5 toy building bricks in a rowneeds 3 minutes to cross a dinner table

How big is Greenhouse 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 can lay eggs even without a partner.

2

One slug lays up to about 100 eggs, and then it dies a few weeks later.

3

Its eggs are tiny, only about 2 mm long.

4

People carried it by accident to many countries, like Australia, Japan and the United States.

5

It likes places close to water.

you asked

Most asked questions about Greenhouse slug

?Is the greenhouse slug a pest?

Sometimes. It can eat garden plants and crops like carrots and potatoes.

?How big is the greenhouse slug?

It can grow up to 5 cm long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Milax gagates
Group
Snails, slugs and worms
Family
Milacidae
Classification
Gastropoda > Stylommatophora > Milacidae
Lives on
Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Oceania, Asia

Where the facts come from

  1. Milax gagates (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 Justin Johnsen. 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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