Ghost slug | |
---|---|
A live Selenochlamys ysbryda, head towards lower left | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Mollusca |
Class: | Gastropoda |
Order: | Stylommatophora |
Family: | Oxychilidae |
Genus: | Selenochlamys |
Species: | S. ysbryda
|
Binomial name | |
Selenochlamys ysbryda Rowson & Symondson, 2008[1]
|
Selenochlamys ysbryda, the ghost slug, is a species of predatory air-breathing land slug. It is a shell-less pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Oxychilidae,[2] although when first described it was assumed to be in the Trigonochlamydidae.
The species was first recognised from various sites in Wales[3] and was formally described and named in 2008 by Ben Rowson, a taxonomist at the National Museum Wales (Amgueddfa Cymru), and Bill Symondson, an ecologist at Cardiff University.[4] It has subsequently turned up at numerous further sites in South Wales and a few sites in England, but it is believed to be an introduction in the UK, occurring mostly in gardens.[5]
Specimens likely to be this species have also now been identified from two sites in natural mountain forest in the Crimea in Ukraine,[6][7] indicating that the Crimean mountains are within its native range.