One of the perks of my work is that I get to help choose the wild species we are talking about! We try to show a wide variety of living things from all over Canada. So when my team and I decided we hadn\u2019t been to film in British Columbia\u2019s coastal rainforest is such a long time, I was stoked! One thing about me is I tend to like the weirdest creatures, including the ones most find \u201cunappealing\u201d, let\u2019s say. And given that we had never talked about a gastropod at HWW, this was my chance! You see, gastropods are among the few groups of animals to have become successful in all three major habitats: the ocean, freshwater systems, and land. They\u2019re all really neat!<\/p>\n
This year, we will get to meet the Banana Slug! We launched our latest video and fact sheet on this slimy critter on June 6, 2026. But why the Banana Slug? For one, I\u2019m always a fan of animals who look like fruit. Who wouldn\u2019t be?!? But seriously, gastropods are fascinating! They are part of the phylum (or group) Molluska<\/em>, like octopus and oysters. These guys are boneless animals which often have a hard shell they produce to protect themselves. Slugs and snails make up the class Gastropoda<\/em>, a group of mollusks, which means \u201cfoot stomach\u201d. It\u2019s a fact that they only have one massive foot on their bodies, that are mainly comprised of a stomach. While snails have this cool shell to hide in, slugs do not, which means they need to find some other means of protection. And if you are a soft, slow, almost toothless creature, that\u2019s not easy! Many slugs rely on their mucus, the slimy stuff they produce to help them move around, give them a foul taste or become so sticky that they\u2019re not easily swallowed. Some are even toxic!<\/p>\n The Banana Slug, our yellowish, gastropod, is no different. It produces a mucus that numbs the mouth of birds or mammals that try to eat it! Some reptilian predators even get their mouths stuck shut because of the thick slime! Still, if you end up in a predator\u2019s mouth, it\u2019s not ideal, so the Banana Slug is good at hiding on the dense rainforest\u2019s floor to prevent this. Even if it\u2019s Canada\u2019s longest slug, and some of the largest terrestrial slugs on Earth, it\u2019s definitely hard to find in the shady, humid areas below the massive trees of that habitat.<\/p>\n This summer, HWW will be talking about some of the rainforest\u2019s most charismatic species, including the Banana Slug. Want to find out more about it? If you\u2019re visiting the rainforest this summer, get out, watch where you lay your feet as you walk (you wouldn\u2019t want to step on one) and look around on the forest floor! You might find one of these important creatures sliding around! And don\u2019t forget to check out the HWW social media and website, at www.hww.ca<\/a>, to get more information about the Banana Slug!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"