Why do slugs dissolve if you sprinkle salt on them?
In: Biology
They don’t come with a salt-tight skin as you do, so the salt pulls water out of the slug as salt is highly charged and likes to dissolve in water. It does that so gladly that water from the slug moves out on the skin, seemly dissolving the slug. In reality, the dissolving salt is poisonous to the slug and it tries to counteract the salt by producing foamy substances…
Edit: as pointed out, the skin is of course leaky for water, but not salt. My bad for writing that wrong
[removed]
It doesn’t so much disintegrate the slug as turn the slug inside out through its skin.
It’s the same way you make cole slaw & sour kraut. You add salt to cabbage and it draws the water out of the cabbage. It even ruptures some of the cell walls. So instead of tough & chewy cabbage you end up with soft yet crunchy salty juicy cabbage.
—
Crunchy salty juicy slugs don’t go quite as well with beer and hotdogs though.
Have you ever put salt on an open wound? That’s what is happening to the slug but on their whole body, salt is pulling the water out as their skin does not have so many layers
Actually regular salt won’t really kill them. They produce a lot of that slimy substance that traps all the salt. By moving forward it kinda sheds off that slime/salt mix covering it.
At least that’s what I heard.
What’s a better way of getting rid of slugs? I have a slug problem and I suppose salt isn’t very pain free?
When my cousin and I were little, we heard about slugs and salt doing something, but didn’t know anything other than that. We poured table salt over a slug to see what would happen. We were not entertained.
Can’t believe it’s not on the front page of every newspaper in America but we are finally about to see how deep his criminal ties go!
As far as I know slugs are very wet and salt causes things to dry quickly. So it’s basically sucking all of its fluids out.
Isn’t it becasue they are really really massive bacteria? o.0
Latest Answers