CLASSIFICATION OF LIMAX (GREY SLUG)
KINGDOM :- ANIMALIA (Multicellular eukaryotic organisms)
PHYLUM :- MOLLUSCA (Unsegmented bilaterally symmetrical and provided with visceral mass, foot and mantle.)
CLASS :- GASTROPODA (Head bearing tentacles, eyes and radula; visceral hump and shell coiled due to torsion.)
SUB-CLASS :- EUTHYNEURA (Nerve loop not twisted in figure of 8.)
ORDER :- PULMONATA (Air-breathing forms.)
SUB-ORDER :- STYLOMMATOPHORA (Eyes at the tips of posterior tentacles.)
FAMILY :- LIMACIDAE (Known by their common name the keelback slugs)
GENUS :- Limax (Grey slug)
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
It has cosmopolitan distribution but specially found in India, Europe and U.S.A. (California).
HABIT AND HABITAT
Limax is abundantly found in cultivated lands, gar grandens and moist woody regions. It is nocturnal and herbivorous.
GENERAL CHARACTERSTICS OF LIMAX (GREY SLUG)
- Commonly known as grey slug.
- Body is elongated and differentiated into head, foot and visceral hump.
- Colour may be yellowish or brownish or greyish.
- Head contains mouth, a pair of lateral lips, a pair of retractile anterior tactile tentacles, a pair of long posterior retractile tentacles, each having a black eye at its tip and a genital pore.
- Eyes are placed at the tips of the posterior of the two pairs of tentacles. The tentacles cannot be invaginated within the head.
- Foot is blunt anteriorly and pointed posteriorly and is provided with grooves. It is divided into lateral and median strips.
- Visceral hump is elongated and flattened and pointed posteriorly.
- Mantle does not extend back behind the middle of the body.
- External shell and ctenidium are absent. A rudimentary shell in the form of a thin calcareous plate hidden in the mantle.
- Hermaphroditic.
IDENTIFICATION
The animal contains anteriorly blunt and posteriorly pointed foot and all above features, hence it is Limax
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