Tuesday, July 27, 2010

gamete exchange ?

does anyone know what these slugs are up to? (They are not eating, unless they eat paving stones)

4 comments:

Tara said...

Silly answers:

maypole dancing
a pinwheel
waiting for a fifth for a starfish??

DNP said...

I don't know what they are doing but a 4-way gamete exhange doesn't seem likely to me. But I'm certainly no expert on the sex lives of gastropods.

Spot said...

I think they are mating because of the thread like structures connecting their hind ends together (obvious on close inspection of the original photo). But I have never seen anything like this before.

DNP said...

Gastropods following a crustacean example? Lewis Carroll mentioned a lobster quadrille. Could this be the first sighting of a slug quadrille. "Take your partners and proceed very slowly around!"