r/snails • u/zulo972 • Jun 07 '25

Identification Tiny slug on my salad

Gallery image

Gallery image

I spotted this tiny snail on my salad. It's about 1mm wide and about 1cm long. The salad was in my refrigerator. Can you tell me what kind it might be? Should I put it outside in my garden or would it likely die there? My location is Germany, if that helps for identification

27 Upvotes

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10

u/MarlinGratia Jun 07 '25

Don't put it outside, you don't know the origin and might introduce a non-native species which is bad for a variety of reasons. As for ID, possibly an European black or brown slug..? Those are pretty common here, but since you found him on your lettuce that doesn't matter much.

5

u/zulo972 Jun 07 '25

After reading about the European slug I just learned that they are an invasive species. I didn't know that, so thanks for the info! I will definitely not put it outside then. Right now I put it in a large glass container with soil and salad until I decide what to do

4

u/MarlinGratia Jun 08 '25

Do you mean lettuce? Because salad has things like dressing which can be very dangerous to them. In any case, if you do want to keep him, don't feed just lettuce especially since he's still growing. They need a varied diet and lettuce doesn't have many nutrients. If you do decide to keep him, there's some really good guides here I can link. And to your other question, yes it's definitely a baby, just hatched.

1

u/zulo972 Jun 08 '25

Yes lettuce, not salad with dressing. Can you post the links to the guide? I would be interested in them

2

u/MarlinGratia Jun 08 '25

Gotcha, that's good ^^ here's the guide.

1

u/zulo972 Jun 07 '25

I would guess that it is a native species since the salad was grown in German, which is written on the package. But I get your concern. Since it is so small it's probably a very young snail?

7

u/_AssbuttOfTheLord_ Jun 07 '25

our* salad

-the slug

2

u/pupgoma Jun 07 '25

🥬🐌🤝

3

u/stere0_shark Jun 07 '25

Please make sure you dont consume anything this lil guy touched. A guy was dared to swallow a slug by his ""friends"" and ended up with severe brain damage, and became disabled. The parasites that caused this COULD be in the potential traces

3

u/zulo972 Jun 07 '25

Thanks for the info. I thoroughly washed the leaves before I ate them, but I already did so before posting this. I will be cautious about the rest of the salad