Giant Hot Pink Slug

Photo: National Parks and Wildlife Services

Photo: Michael Murphy

Got slugs in your garden? Betcha not like this giant pink slug in Australia! National Parks ranger Michael Murphy shares with us some photos of the giant, hot pink slug in Mount Kaputar, New South Wales:

''It's just one of those magical places, especially when you are up there on a cool, misty morning,'' said Michael Murphy, a national parks ranger for 20 years, whose beat covers the mountain top.

''It's a tiny island of alpine forest, hundreds of kilometres away from anything else like it. The slugs, for example, are buried in the leaf mould during the day, but sometimes at night they come out in their hundreds and feed off the mould and moss on the trees. They are amazing, unreal-looking creatures.''

Locals had long reported seeing bizarre pink slugs after rainfall in the area, but it was only very recently that taxonomists confirmed the slugs, Triboniophorus aff. graeffei, as well as several of the snail species - which prey on other vegetarian land snails - were unique to the mountaintop.

Ben Cubby of The Sydney Morning Herald has the story: Link