Australian Park Rangers Discover Neon Pink Slugs

Slugs, those slimy ugly creatures that we all seem to hate, suddenly got a little more interesting and definitely a lot more noticeable, thanks to these giant neon pink ones that were recently discovered by park rangers in New South Wales, Australia

Besides being bright, these creatures that so far have only been discovered on Mount Kaputar, a 5,000-foot peak in the Nandewar Range, NSW, are also quite large - measuring eight inches or about twice the size of their modern-day counterparts.

Though the species is new to us, scientists believe that these slugs are an ancient creature - dating all the way to the time when Australia was covered with rainforests. While their counterparts living in other parts of the country were decimated as the continent became drier, these survived thanks a series of volcano eruptions at Mount Kaputar which itself is a remnant of an extinct crater. This, in addition to millions of years of geological changes has resulted in a unique ecosystem that has allowed invertebrates, as well as, plants from bygone eras to survive and even, thrive, in the lush region.

In addition to this bright slug, the rangers also found three species of cannibal snails - Ones that look like ordinary mollusks but slide around the forest floor seeking out the slime trail of fellow snails, and then diligently hunting them down to attack and devour! We wonder what other fascinating and colorful creatures inhabited the earth during ancient times.

Resources: news.yahoo.com, huffingtonpost.com