{"id":2035,"date":"2011-08-29T22:08:15","date_gmt":"2011-08-29T21:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/2035"},"modified":"2013-11-08T18:47:57","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T18:47:57","slug":"leopard-slugs-mating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/leopard-slugs-mating\/","title":{"rendered":"Leopard Slugs Mating"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->I&#39;ve seen and photographed leopard slugs mating once before, but it remains one of the most unusual of wildlife encounters I&#39;ve seen. It happened again last night. I was out waiting for foxes (no luck) and photographing hungry spiders when I spotted a pair of slugs on a wall. <br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/slug_mating_2808116501.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>When I looked again a few minutes later, they were suspended like this.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/slug_mating_2808116514.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>They wrapped themselves into a tight spiral.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/slug_mating_2808116534.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>The sex organs then everted. They are both hermaphroditic and there is full equality in leopard slug mating: they both become pregnant.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/slug_mating_2808116558.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/slug_mating_2808116592.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/slug_mating_2808116664.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>After nearly 30 minutes they begin to disengage.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/slug_mating_2908116704.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>And finally they go their separate ways.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/slug_mating_2908116726.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>That is a very brief excerpt of a much longer sequence. I also took a littl ebit of video, though with next to no light and hand holding the camera and a torch the quality isn&#39;t great. I&#39;ll see what I can salvage of it over the next few days. Meanwhile there are a few more <a href=\"http:\/\/my.opera.com\/Words\/albums\/slideshow\/?album=8675972\" target=\"_blank\">shots in the gallery<\/a>.<br \/><span class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/button.php?u=Words\" width=\"0\" height=\"0\" alt=\"Nature Blog Network\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/><i>Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100mm f\/2.8L macro IS USM lens.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1046],"tags":[777,1133],"class_list":["post-2035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leopard-slugs","tag-leopard-slug","tag-mating","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}