Grey Field Slug

The grey field slug, also called the grey garden slug or milky slug and known scientifically as Deroceras reticulatum, is a small air-breathing land slug of the family Agriolimacidae and a significant agricultural pest. It is creamy to light coffee colored, rarely blackish spotted, with a short keel near the rear of the body and dark markings forming a net-like pattern behind the mantle, its mucus normally colorless but turning milky white when the animal is disturbed; adults typically measure 40 to 60 millimeters. It lives in cultivated ground such as meadows, gardens, and roadsides, sheltering under stones and litter without burrowing, moving mostly at night and covering as much as 12 meters in one night. Native to Europe, North Africa, and the Atlantic Islands, it has spread with human activity to North America, South America, Tasmania, New Zealand, and central Asia.