As reduced tillage is practiced on more field crop acreage we should expect to encounter slugs and their damage more frequently. Slugs are soft bodied gastropods with no apparent head or legs. They dwell in the soil and residue on the soil surface. Slugs have two sets of tentacles, or stalks, arising from the front of the body, a short anterior set and a longer, posterior optical set. These are raised when they are foraging for food, and quickly retracted when disturbed.
Slugs have no legs but they do have something called a foot which is used for locomotion.
The foot is actually a muscle on the underside of the body. Movement occurs via rhythmic contraction of this muscle, creating a wave type action which propels them over a thin film of mucus or slime excreted from glands on the underside of the body. The gray garden slug and the marsh slug are two common species which may damage field crops. It is both the most common and potentially damaging slug. Young slugs, or juveniles, of the gray garden slug are light pink to gray.