Slug Sex | McHumor & TheKomic Cartoons

Last week’s blog post titled Mushroom Sex got more hits than any other page on my website.

I doubt it would have done as well with the titled Fungi Reproduction. That’s why this post is titled Slug Sex, not “The Mating Habits of the Ariolimax columbianus?” I do want readers. Plus, while slugs may be slow, the way mate is pretty racy.

A common rule in nature is that if a creature is smaller than you, eat it; if it’s bigger than you, run from it; and if it’s the same size as you, mate with it.

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That in part explains the behavior of sea slugs, nudibranchs (Navanax inermis) that will try to eat each other, and if they fail at that, they mate. Imagine the after-mating conversation. One lights a cigarette, inhales deeply, and coos, “Hope earlier you didn’t take my trying to eat you personally.”

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The most common slug in coastal Oregon is the banana slug, Ariolimax columbianus. Due to its olive green coloring, I think it really should be called the unripe banana slug. Oh, I can see it now. A steamy series of slug romance novels: Fifty Shades of Green.

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The banana slug is related to Ariolimax dolichophallus which roughly translates to a slug with a big–how shall I put this in a PG-Rated blog?–a big Male Organ, an MO for short, an MO that can swell to lengths longer than the slug’s body.

They’re also related Ariolimax californicus brachyphallus which translates to a slug from California with a small MO. Take that California.

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Speaking of large MOs, a starling’s sex organs weigh 1,500 times as much during mating season as they do the rest of the year.

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Slugs take their time doing just about everything, even mating. They take hours to mate, sometimes days. Before you start to get jealous, I should mention that they get so into the act that to uncouple they sometimes need to gnaw off their large MOs. Their large MOs? As in both of them have MOs? Yes. They’re hermaphrodites (i.e. they have both sex organs). Good thing, otherwise, can imagine the couple counseling they’d need after one of them gnawed off the other’s MO?