![[Take a wild guess]](BB-slugs.jpg)
Picturedare
two Great Slugs (Limax maximus) in the throes of passion. Michael Martin,John
May, and Rosemary Taylor describe their act as follows in "Weird&
Wonderful Wildlife":
"After crawling up an overhanging branch or wall, these hermaphroditiccreatures circle each other for 30-90 minutes while exchanging mutaul caresseswith their tentacles and secreting a great quantity of mucus which eventuallyforms into a twisted patch of glue-like consistency some two inches indiameter. The slugs then entwine themselves corkscrew fashion, detach themselvesfrom their base and hang by a twisted cord of the thickened mucus 8-15inches long. Still twisting in their embrace, they extrude from their headstheir blue, club-shaped penis sacs which then extend into a fan shape atthe tips. The two "penial masses" are then intertwined in a tightspiral, the upper coils expanding to form a kind of umbrella. When thisis achieved, sperm transfer takes place and the slugs untwist themselves,crawl back up the mucus cord (which one of them eats), slide down the treeor wall and return to their everyday life in such damp environments asthe undersides of fallen logs."
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