While I was digging up potatoes yesterday, I came across a pile of what looked like small translucent pearls. I've seen them once before in the strawberry patch, a few years ago. They are rather pretty, but the slimy underside is that these are slug eggs, and not just any slug, but the brown Iberia slug (Spanish slug) that is a major pest in many gardens. From my online searches, I found that slug eggs are translucent when newly-laid and become more opaque over time. I also read that young adult slugs lay fewer eggs than older adult slugs. Our community garden board encourages us to get rid of them, so I did. I'm sure there are other piles of eggs placed around the garden; this particular pile was almost in plain view, which is a bit odd. In one of the eggs at the bottom left of the photo I took you can see a brownish line; I wonder if that is a baby slug forming.
There is an underside to nature that isn't always pretty or pleasant. That underside is part of the entire picture--the positive and the negative, the light and the dark, the beauty and the ugliness, the predators and the prey, the plants and the slugs that eat them. That dichotomy is part of nature and part of life.
The spider and the honeybee |
Iberia slug eggs Adult Iberia slug (photo from Norway party proposes 'slug hour' to tackle invasive pests - BBC News) |