Most of us have been very disrespectful toward snails and slugs, thinking disgusted thoughts and turning into executioners of the low-riding mollusks.
David Gordon wants to change your perception. The Seattle author of “The Secret World of Slugs and Snails: Life in the Very Slow Lane,” will speak Thursday in Everett.
Copulatory darts? Green blood? Dining on dog poop?
Gordon, part lecturer and part comedian, has always had an interest in underdog species.
“It’s easy to be crazy about bald eagles and orca whales, but there aren’t many who know how wonderful small things are, and how important they are to the environment,” Gordon said.
“I was just fascinated with mollusks. Slugs and snails are vastly different from us. They have green blood, no hands or feet, (tiny) brains, they’re cold-blooded and hermaphrodites. They’re like creatures from another planet.”
Why are most people repelled rather than fascinated?
“We encounter them at their worst, eating our veggies. The ones in our gardens are mostly non-native species, mostly brought here by accident, probably eggs of slugs and snails in potted plants and on plant material. Now they’re everywhere in the U.S.,” Gordon said.
“Native species wouldn’t know what to do in a garden. Those orderly rows of plants would make them nervous.”
The two slugs in Northwest gardens are the great garden slug (aka leopard slug) and the chocolate arion, Gordon said.
While humans eat escargot, it’s pretty tough to imagine eating a slug. But ground-feeding birds, reptiles and raccoons consume them.
When autopsies are done on road-kill raccoons, “their stomachs are full of crushed snail shells,” he said.
If you’re squeamish about executing slugs and snails, Gordon has a suggestion.
“Put them in a zip-lock baggie and throw it in freezer. They’ll just drift off to sleep, and later you can throw them in the compost.”
We do need to show slugs and snails a little respect. They are great decomposers, working their way through decaying plant material. They also eat tender new shoots and new growth, which is why we wish they would dine at a nongarden outlet.
“In redwood forests in California where banana slugs live, it’s known that they nibble plants all around redwood seedlings but not the seedlings. Their feces fertilize the soil. Huge redwoods got their starts with the help of banana slugs,” Gordon said.
As to sex … slugs and snails don’t approach procreation in anything near human fashion. They are hermaphrodites, each with male and female parts.
“Hooking up is pretty complicated,” Gordon said. “If you see two slugs mating, it almost looks like a third creature is involved. Actually what you’re seeing is genitalia in a two-way exchange of egg and sperm.”
While humans may exchange roses and candy, snails shoot love darts at each other during the sexual run-up. A copulatory dart is a small piece of calcium housed in a sheath.
Scientists have decided that there are hormones on the dart that lower the target’s sperm-resisting ability, thus making the snail more receptive to sperm. All of this, of course, is done on slug and snail time.
Expect an entertaining show at 7 p.m. Thursday at Everett’s Northwest Stream Center. The event is PG-rated and geared for middle-school age children to adults. Reserve a seat by calling 425-316-8592. Cost is $5 for Adopt-A-Stream Foundation members and $7 for nonmembers.
The center is in McCollum Park, 600 128th St. SE, Everett.
Sharon Wootton: 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
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