Just HUGE!

[apple]

Hi

I have a friend that have an house in Amazonia, (Peru), he does a lot of field work/collecting and he said that already caught ( more than once) giant slugs.
I couldn´t believe when he said that some were measured/ weighed and the numbers showed were like these: 40 cm of lenght ( and the animal wasn´t fully stretched) and weighing 1,5 kgs!!
He remarked that Amazonia has LOTS of unknown species and loads of them seem to be record holders.

[AlienSnail]

Would LOVE to see some of those!

[donnaraine]

my god theyre beasties! ask him to get some pics if he can

[apple]

Sure.
I hope to have some surprises for you all, next year.

Ps: Hard to wait lol... He´s now in Portugal and hopefully will get back there soon.
One interesting note: These slugs change a bit color according to the weather.

[AlienSnail]

Oooh this is pretty exciting!

[Arno]

Are you sure he's not near sighted and they are actually chameleons ,lol?

[apple]

Nov 23, 2008 21:02:26 GMT Arno said:

Are you sure he's not near sighted and they are actually chameleons ,lol?

There are no chameleons in Amazonia.
The animals were analyzed so not a big doubt.
The slight change of color according to the environment or weather is a way widely used by diverse forest animals to avoid predation. Certainly a huge slug like this could be highly conspicuous so it relies on batesian mimetism.