Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A slug on a wall in Kanagawa, Japan.. Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc.The word slug is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced shell, or only a small internal shell, particularly sea slugs and semi-slugs (this is in contrast to the common name snail, which applies to ...
The male and female system act as separate units until the egg and sperm are ready to fuse together. The fusion of egg and sperm takes place in the uterus of the female system. Hermaphrodites also have a hermaphroditic duct, which helps change the sex of the gastropod during certain times of the year.
Aeolidia papillosa, known as the common grey sea slug, ... all experience a hermaphroditic nature with complete male and female reproductive organs.
Land slugs are a highly polyphyletic group, which means that many land slug families are not at all closely related to one another. The majority of land slugs are simultaneous hermaphrodites, meaning they possess both male and female reproductive organs that are functional at the same time. Some species regularly self-fertilise.
Banana slugs are hermaphroditic, meaning they are both male and female at the same time. [3] During reproduction, Ariolimax buttoni engages in apophallation - the behavior in which a slug chews off its mating partner's penis. [5] Their mating season is very long, lasting from February to early September. In addition, the copulation itself is long.
The apophallated slug can mate as a female. [2] It has been proposed that it might be adaptive for a slug to apophallate the mating partner because that partner is subsequently prevented from mating as a male and so might increase the allocation of resources to the production of eggs fertilised from the mating. [1]
Gastropoda (previously known as univalves and sometimes spelled "Gasteropoda") are a major part of the phylum Mollusca, and are the most highly diversified class in the phylum, with 65,000 to 80,000 [3] [4] living snail and slug species.
The common slug eater usually gives birth to litters of three to twelve young. [8] [9] However, broods from large females may consist of as many as 22 newborns, each measuring eight to eleven cm (3⅛-4¼ inches). The total combined weight of the young may exceed the weight of the female after giving birth.