The Telegraph reports that gardeners have been urged to pick up their torches and hunt in their gardens for slugs as the Royal Horticultural Society issues a plea for data on the disappearing British bug. [See the full article for details of how to hunt and how to report what you find]

There are worries the Yellow Cellar Slug, which is useful for gardens as it feeds on decaying rather than live plant material, is being usurped by the Green Cellar Slug, originally from Ukraine, which arrived in the 1970s.  Since the Green Cellar Slug arrived, numbers of the useful slug are thought to have sharply declined.

While both slugs have large, green-yellow, patterned bodies, the Yellow Cellar Slug has a long yellow stripe running along the centre of its tail.

You can also learn more about these slugs from this Slugwatch guide to the Yellow Cellar Slug and Green Cellar Slug.

Photo above by Jon Sullivan under creative commons.