Scientist tells when giant slugs might appear in Moscow
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Scientist tells when giant slugs might appear in Moscow
Scientist tells when giant slugs may appear in Moscow - RIA Novosti, 05/26/2025
Scientist tells when giant slugs might appear in Moscow
Giant slugs may appear in Moscow as early as the second half of June if the summer is warm and humid, otherwise Muscovites will encounter them only in... RIA Novosti, 05/26/2025
2025-05-26T02:50:00+03:00
2025-05-26T02:50:00+03:00
2025-05-26T02:50:00+03:00
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MOSCOW, May 26 - RIA Novosti. Giant slugs may appear in Moscow as early as the second half of June if the summer is warm and humid, otherwise Muscovites will encounter them only in mid-July, Vadim Maryinsky, a research fellow at the Department of General Ecology and Hydrobiology of the Biology Faculty of Moscow State University, told RIA Novosti. He noted that when people talk about giant slugs, they mean slugs of the Arion vulgaris species. They are often called Spanish slugs, although their homeland is not Spain at all, but France or Germany. They can reach 15 centimeters in length and cause significant damage to both agriculture and ordinary summer residents. "If the summer is warm and humid, then, in general, they can already grow to large sizes in the second half of June. If it is a little cooler, then more likely in mid-July. And in the second half of the summer there are a lot of them, they are large, noticeable, and they attack a wide variety of plants," Maryinsky said. The scientist explained that adult individuals usually become sexually mature by mid-summer, then they begin actively laying eggs. Young individuals emerge from them in about a month. Some eggs are laid just before winter - none of them hatch until the following spring. Young individuals that have managed to hatch burrow into the soil and overwinter. Already in the spring, when the air temperature confidently exceeds plus 10 degrees, they begin to crawl out and actively feed. "But at this stage they are not yet conspicuous, they are only a centimeter or one and a half long, nothing outstanding, in general. And, accordingly, the eggs that were laid just before winter begin to develop. These slugs usually reach large sizes by mid-summer. And that is when they begin to catch the eye, become noticeable. But here, however, everything depends on how warm and humid the summer is," Maryinsky added. He said that it is difficult to speculate whether there will be more slugs in Moscow this summer than usual, since in the central regions of European Russia the winter was milder than usual this year, and it can be expected that a larger number of both young slugs that went into hibernation and eggs overwintered successfully. "But at the same time, the winter was quite snowless, again, in the central regions of European Russia. Frosts occurred periodically, which could, on the contrary, damage them quite a lot," the scientist concluded.
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MOSCOW, May 26 - RIA Novosti. Giant slugs may appear in Moscow as early as the second half of June if the summer is warm and humid, otherwise Muscovites will encounter them only in mid-July, Vadim Maryinsky, a research fellow at the Department of General Ecology and Hydrobiology of the Biological Faculty of Moscow State University, told RIA Novosti.
"If the summer is warm and humid, then, in general, they can grow to large sizes already in the second half of June. If it is a little cooler, then more likely in mid-July. And in the second half of the summer there are many of them, they are large, noticeable, and they attack a wide variety of plants," Maryinsky said.
The scientist explained that adult individuals usually become sexually mature by mid-summer, when they begin actively laying eggs. Young individuals emerge from them in about a month. Some eggs are laid just before winter - none of them hatch until the following spring. Young individuals that have managed to hatch burrow into the soil and spend the winter. Already in the spring, when the air temperature confidently exceeds plus 10 degrees, they begin to crawl out and actively feed.
"But at this stage they are not yet conspicuous, they are only a centimeter or one and a half long, nothing special, in general. And, accordingly, the eggs that were laid just before winter begin to develop. These slugs usually reach large sizes by mid-summer. And that is when they begin to catch the eye, become noticeable. But here, however, everything depends on how warm and humid the summer is," Maryinsky added.
"But at the same time, the winter was quite snowless, again, in the central regions of European Russia. Frosts occurred periodically, which, on the contrary, could have damaged them quite a lot," the scientist concluded.
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