Arion intermedius

Native in: Continental Europe, the UK, and Iceland, less common in Scandinavia (Quick 1960; Kerney & Cameron 1979).

Non-native in: South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, and North America (Quick 1960; Herbert 1997).

occurs (regularly, as a native taxon) in multiple nations

Canada

Origin: Exotic

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Type of Residency: Year-round

United States

Origin: Exotic

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Type of Residency: Year-round

Global Range: (>2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)) This species is Western European in origin (Cowie, 1999) but has been introduced into North America. It also occurs in the Azores, Australia, Europe, New Zealand, the United States, South Africa, Canada, North Africa, and Polynesia.

External: Yellow-white to gray-white body, sometimes with light bands on sides; dark tentacles; tubercles prickly/conical when contracted; yellow-gray sole; yellow mucus; (Kerney & Cameron 1979).

Internal: Dark ovotestis; short spermoviduct; rounded spermatheca, duct very short with a wide base; very short atrium that is internally smooth (Quick 1960).

Eggs: 2 x 1.5-2 mm, opaque white with calcareous spots, laid in summer and fall (Quick 1960).

Juveniles: 4 mm long at hatching, pigmented as adults (Quick 1960).

To 20 mm long extended (Kerney & Cameron 1979).

Habitat Type: Terrestrial

Comments: This slug is often locally abundant in pastures, hedgerows, plantation forests, and in native forests. It can penetrate deep into undisturbed forest from areas disturbed by humans (Barker, 1999).

Commonest in forests and also occurring in cultivated land, fields, hedgerows, and gardena (Chichester & Getz 1969; Kerney & Cameron 1979); takes shelter in moist ground, under logs and at the base of grass clumps (Quick 1960).

Non-Migrant: No. All populations of this species make significant seasonal migrations.

Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make local extended movements (generally less than 200 km) at particular times of the year (e.g., to breeding or wintering grounds, to hibernation sites).

Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make annual migrations of over 200 km.

Feed on fungus in the field, live plants in the lab (Quick 1960).

Note: For many non-migratory species, occurrences are roughly equivalent to populations.

Estimated Number of Occurrences: > 300

Comments: Recently this species was found in several sites in the Hakalua Forest National Wildlife Refuge, on the windward slopes of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, Hawaiian Islands (Howarth et al., 2003) suggesting it may be much more widespread on Hawaii than originally postulated by Cowie (1997). In California, it occurs in 6 counties: Marin, San Francisco, Alameda, Monterey, Ventura, and Riverside (McDonnell et al., 2009). It was also reported for the first time in southern Illinois on the east side of the Mississippi River (Coppolino, 2008). In New York, Hotopp and Pearce (2007) report it from Madison and Wyoming Cos. as introduced.

>1,000,000 individuals

The following is a representative barcode sequence, the centroid of all available sequences for this species.

There are 18 barcode sequences available from BOLD and GenBank.  Below is a sequence of the barcode region Cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI or COX1) from a member of the species.  See the BOLD taxonomy browser for more complete information about this specimen and other sequences.

Download FASTA File

Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLDS) Stats
Public Records: 18
Specimens with Barcodes: 21
Species With Barcodes: 1

Canada

Rounded National Status Rank: NNA - Not Applicable

United States

Rounded National Status Rank: NNA - Not Applicable

Rounded Global Status Rank: G5 - Secure

Reasons: This species is Western European in origin (Cowie, 1999) but has been introduced into North America. It also occurs in the Azores, Australia, Europe, New Zealand, the United States, South Africa, Canada, North Africa, and Polynesia.