In what may be one of the most gross discoveries ever, a park ranger has photographed a giant pink slug that lives on the peak of Mount Kaputar in New South Wales, Australia. Michael Murphy, who works for Australia's National Parks and Wildlife Services, is the first to capture the slugs on camera---a surprise considering their bright coloring and 20-centimeter length that is more than half a foot long.
The slugs only live in this one area of the world, which has an isolated ecosystem that allows for unique species to flourish which would not last anywhere else in the world. Murphy described the area and it's slug inhabitants to The Sydney Morning Herald:
''It's just one of those magical places, especially when you are up there on a cool, misty morning...It's a tiny island of alpine forest, hundreds of kilometres away from anything else like it. The slugs, for example, are buried in the leaf mould during the day, but sometimes at night they come out in their hundreds and feed off the mould and moss on the trees. They are amazing, unreal-looking creatures,'' he said.
Though many had claimed to see the slugs before, it was only very recently that they were confirmed to exist by scientists. The slug's official title is Triboniophorus aff. graeffei. And not only are the slugs massive and look like giant glow sticks, the slug's main diet is other slugs. That's right, the pink slugs are carnivorous in nature and eat smaller vegetarian slugs as its main meal.
These creatures are a reminder of the Australian landscape from millions of years ago when the continent was covered in tropical rainforest. Mount Kaputar remained a haven for the creatures after the rest of Australia began to dry out and become a desert.
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