''Bielzia coerulans'', commonly known as the Carpathian blue slug or simply the blue slug, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of very large land

slug Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less Terrestrial mollusc, terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced ...

, a

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on o ...

pulmonate Pulmonata or pulmonates is an informal group (previously an order, and before that, a subclass) of snails and slugs characterized by the ability to breathe air, by virtue of having a pallial lung instead of a gill, or gills. The group inclu ...

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Limacidae Limacidae, also known by their common name the keelback slugs, are a taxonomic family of medium-sized to very large, air-breathing land slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Limacoidea. Distribution The distributio ...

, the keelback slugs.

Taxonomy

''Bielzia coerulans'' was discovered in 1847 and described under the name ''Limax coerulans'' by Austrian-Hungarian

malacologist Malacology, from Ancient Greek μαλακός (''malakós''), meaning "soft", and λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (molluscs or mollusks), the second-largest ...

, Michael Bielz (1787-1866), in 1851. (His son Eduard Albert Bielz was also a malacologist.) ''Bielzia coerulans'' is the only species in the genus ''Bielzia''. Wiktor A. (1989). ''Limacoidea et Zonitoidea nuda. Slimaki pomrowioksztaltne (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora)''. Fauna Poloniae 12,

Polska Akademia Nauk The Polish Academy of Sciences (, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of distinguished scholars a ...

, Warszawa, 208 pp., page 178-181. Some authors, for example Russian malacologists, classify genus ''Bielzia'' as the only genus (

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

) within the separate family, Limacopsidae. There is also a separate subfamily, Bielziinae, for genus ''Bielzia'' (I. M. Likharev & Wiktor, 1980). According to the taxonomy of Bouchet & Rocroi (2005), Limacopsidae and Bielziinae are synonyms for Limacinae.

Distribution

This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the

Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinav ...

in Central and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

. The type locality of ''Bielzia coerulans'' is South Carpathians in

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

.Kantor Yu I., Vinarski M. V., Schileyko A. A. & Sysoev A. V.(published online on December 22, 2009). "Catalogue of the continental mollusks of Russia and adjacent territories"
Version 2.3.
*

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

- in Moravia only, vulnerable (VU) in Moravia * Southern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

* Hungary * Germany (presumed introduction in Westerwald, Rhineland-Palatinate, discovered 2012) Slug blue

Description

This slug turns blue when an adult and becomes 100 – 140 mm in length. It is evenly blue or bluish green (occasionally black) with a dark greyish head and tentacles, and margins pale yellowish, sole pale yellowish or whitish. Juveniles are yellowish brown with dark lateral bands.

Reproductive system The reproductive system of an organism, also known as the genital system, is the biological system made up of all the anatomical organs involved in sexual reproduction. Many non-living substances such as fluids, hormones, and pheromones are al ...

: Genitalia are without penis. There is only an accessory organ for copulation.

Ecology

''Bielzia coerulans'' inhabits

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

and

coniferous Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...

forests in mountains, usually at the bottom, or under

dead wood Dead wood may refer to: *Dead tree (disambiguation) * Dead wood, the "straight man" in a double act *Dead Wood (novel), ''Dead Wood'' (novel), a 2009 novel by Chris Longmuir * Dead Wood (film), ''Dead Wood'' (film), a 2007 British film See also< ...

logs. Maturity is in June to July. Copulation occurs at the soil. There are 30-80 eggs laid in one clutch. Adults die after egg deposition. Half grown juveniles hibernate. Fully grown slugs appear in May.

References

This article incorporates public domain text from the reference."Species summary for ''Bielzia coerulans''".

AnimalBase AnimalBase is a project brought to life in 2004 and is maintained by the University of Göttingen, Germany. The goal of the AnimalBase project is to digitize early zoological literature, provide copyright-free open access to zoological works, and p ...

, last modified 29 October 2009, accessed 9 September 2010. {{Taxonbar, from2=Q773951, from1=Q19945170 Limacidae Monotypic gastropod genera