The banana slug, a bright yellow mollusk reaching six inches or more, is a key decomposer in the temperate rainforest. It feeds on fallen leaves, fungi, and detritus using a radula bearing tens of thousands of tiny teeth, returning nutrients to the soil and helping sustain the forest's remarkable productivity.
Keep half an eye on the wet shoulder and the trailside if you stop, because one of this forest's strangest residents is the banana slug. Bright yellow, sometimes six inches long or more, slow as a Sunday. It's the cleanup crew, recycling fallen leaves and mushrooms back into the soil with a tongue covered in tens of thousands of microscopic teeth. Homely, sure. But this place couldn't stay so green without it.
Photo: Linda Tanner from Los Osos & Creston, California, U.S.A. · CC BY 2.0
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