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back to news index ..... Mystery Ghost Slug British gardeners may encounter an unexpected arrival this summer – the bizarre subterranean Ghost Slug or Selenochlamys ysbryda, as named by experts at National Museum Cardiff, Wales. Noticed in a Cardiff garden in 2007 by a member of the public, biologists at National Museum Cardiff and Cardiff University were amazed when shown specimens, which has never been seen before in Europe. The Ghost Slug has also been spotted in a garden in Caerphilly, South Wales.
The origin of this particular slug is unknown but this type of creature is usually found in Turkey and Georgia. Unlike most slugs, the Ghost Slug is carnivorous and kills earthworms at night with powerful blade-like teeth. It lives underground and squeezes its flexible body into cracks to get at the worms. “The Ghost Slug belongs to an obscure and almost unpronounceable group of slugs - the Trigonochlamydidae,” said Ben Rowson, a biologist at National Museum Cardiff. “We had to thumb through lots of old publications in Russian and German to find anything like them – but then discovered they were something entirely new.” It is thought that the lack of eyes and body colour could indicate that the species evolved in a cave system and that it was probably brought to the UK in plant pots. To monitor the Ghost Slug’s spready, the Museum have produced a simple identification guide available from their website: www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/rhagor/article/?article_id=193.
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