La limace rouge

It's called arion rufus, the red slug. But the ones I see are mostly bright orange, like this one. They live mostly in the woods around the vineyards, preferring the dark and moist ground to the bright sun. After our recent rains, the paths through the woods are crawling with them. If it weren't for their bright color, it would be easy to step on them. Yuck.

A red slug climbing up an embankment.

One interesting feature of land slugs is the pneumostome or breathing pore. When it's wide open, it looks as if something has taken a huge bite out of the slug. In fact, when I saw this one (below) I thought it was injured or sick. But it turns out that it was just taking in the fresh woodland air.

This slug's pneumostome, wide open, is visible just behind its head.

This is another example of how amazing and useful the internet can be. I was able to type "orange slug" into Google, then find all kinds of information about what this creature is called, where it lives, what it eats, and what that big gaping hole on its side is for.