Licorice, chocolate, banana. Not edible.

 A rainy evening is the best time to hunt for slugs. Or to find them when you're looking for something else. These turned up on my spider hunt.

The chocolate slug, aka licorice slug, chocolate arion. Arion rufus.

Same slug, hunkered down after I moved a leaf, exposing more of his orange striped fringe.

These slugs are an introduced species. Its colour can vary from yellow-brown to chocolate to black, when it looks identical to the black slug, Arion ater, different only internally. Black slugs, they say, are not present here on the island. So this next slug is probably a chocolate, too.

There's a hint of the orange foot.

Big polypore on ground. With two slugs.

This was taken after dark; the mushroom was just a darker patch on the ground. I didn't see the slugs until I looked at the photo. The one on the left is another chocolate slug; on the right there's a banana slug, Ariolimax columbianus.

I don't know why these slugs are named after food. Appetizing, right?

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Una tarde con lluvia es el mejor momento para buscar babosas. O para encontrarlas cuando buscas otra cosa. Estas aparecieron durante mi búsqueda de arañas.

La primera es la que llamamos la babosa de chocolate o de anis. Es una babosa importada desde Europa. Puede venir en colores desde amarillo/café a color chocolate, hasta un negro puro. Aquí se le puede notar los bordes del pie, de color anaranjado con rayas negras.

La babosa negra, una especie casi idéntica, por lo menos en cuanto se puede observar sin hacer cirugía, no se halla, dicen, aquí en la isla. Así que esta negra ha de ser una babosa de anís.

En la última foto, tomada después de anochecer, salen dos babosas, comiendo un hongo políporo. La de la izquierda es otra chocolate. A la derecha, una babosa "plátano", nativo y común aquí.

¿Porqé será que les llaman a estos animalitos por comidas, y además por comidas deliciosas? 

This red chocolate is black

Black chocolate. Slimy black chocolate.

It's a slug; it has to be slimy.

Chocolate slug, aka red slug, Arion rufus, at Bear Creek Nature Park

But isn't it beautiful?

I didn't know this until I checked E-Fauna: these shiny black slugs are just one colour morph of the European Red slug. Sometimes they're light brown with a dark head and orange foot. Sometimes they're just pale brown without the keel. Or they may be chocolate brown. Or even orange. (Links go to E-Fauna photos.)

They may even be bright red, although E-Fauna doesn't have a photo of one, and I've never seen one. I've seen all the other colour morphs, without realizing they were all the same species. (Like cats or dogs, their coat colour is whatever turns up in the shake of the DNA.)

They're an exotic species: our only native BC species is the big banana slug. I see those mostly in the woods; the little Chocolate eats my garden flowers. And my lettuce any year I dare plant any.