My dream slug! - Bielzia coerulans

[strangemouse]

Just. Wow.

[crossless]

That' really beautiful. Do you know anything about it like what type of food it eat or where it's from? It's always learn new facts about snails and slug so you can notice how differently they can live.

[AlienSnail]

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's just amazing! It doesn't look real! I wonder why on earth it's blue?

[crossless]

Could the color example come from diet? I heard that some land snails and slugs really rarely they have "poison" same kind of than millipedes has.

[robert]

Hi there,

I wanted to share some knowledge on Bielzia coerulans.
It was mentioned on my keel-back-slug page, as it is a member of that family (Limacidae), together with the leopard slug (Limax maximus).

Bielzia coerulans has a pretty Eastern pattern of distribution - it is found "neither in Germany nor in Austria, but in the High Tatra of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, as well as in more eastern Carpathian countries, as far East as the Ukraine.".

According to wikipedia, the blue slug lives in forests up to an elevation of near 2000 metres or 6000 feet. While it stays hidden during the day, it becomes active in the night.

Wikipedia: Blauschnegel (in German).

Sadly the wikipedia article does not state any food preferences (working with the 1990 Falkner book, which does not concentrate on this matter). I would think that B. coerulans lives like Limax cinereoniger: Mushrooms and decaying plant matter. As with Limacids, it could well also be cannibalistic.

The species obviously is quite rare - the wikipedia article says the species is on the red list in the Czech republic.

Ah, and besides: This slug is not always blue, may also have colours from malachite green to violet black. The colour, though, has nothing to do with the diet.

Looking at the colours of common slugs, such as Arion vulgaris, aka. lusitanicus, which can be between jet black and brick red, slugs are astonishingly variable and potentially very colourful. Only this is the only blue snail I know of.

Kind regards
Rob

[AlienSnail]

Thank you Robert
That's a good page. I thought that the Limax maximums was the largest slug, again i have learned today!
That's interesting the slug in question isn't always blue, but I would recon that the other colours are just as stunning.
Yes it would be good to know more about it, and thank you for providing us with the information that you have.

[tigerzeus]

What a STUNNING slug!!!

[jolovessnailies]

He is beautiful.

Hugs
JO xx

[GrandTouringShell]

So blue! I wonder if there are snails so blue like this, out there?