The Slug

I was walking home after going to the gym tonight and I stepped over what looked, at first glance, like a big acorn. Then I did a double take and realized that it was a snail, I love snails! And I see them so rarely, I got disproportionately excited! He was huge, probably two inches long with a big green and yellow shell. And I thought, gosh you are so much prettier than a slug. Then I thought, now wait a minute, it takes all kinds to make the world go round, those less beautiful serve no less of a purpose (yes I turned my snail sighting into an existential internal dialogue). Then I remembered that upon sighting an absurdely huge slug while hiking the other day I decided to look up what purpose they served; they must bring more to the table than slime right? So I looked it up. It turns out they are incredibly important......and they have tongues!! Who knew?!
So here's a bit about the slug:
Their 'skin' is not waterproof and they must remain damp at all times in order for their bodies to not dry out, which is why they are always out at night, after the rain, under rocks etc. That is also why they shrivel up when you put salt on them, and yes they do have nervous systems, so yes that does hurt them, so stop it. They have eyes, and tentacles, and mouths WITH TONGUES AND TEENY TEENY TEETH!! Which leads me to their purpose. A large part of the slug diet is made up of decaying vegetation, animal feces and carrion (which is a fancy word for dead animal carcass). So by processing these materials and excreting them back into the soil, the slugs are returning the nutrients of those materials back into the earth much quicker than would happen if the decaying process just ran its course. Those very nutrients are what make soil fertile and able to foster the growth of crops and plants that we as humans depend on for consumption, occupation, economic development etc......not to mention that nearly every other species on the planet also depends on some plant or another. Further more!...Research is being conducted (as we speak) at the University of Washington to determine the chemical structure of the slime that the slug excretes and see if we can use that to learn about mucus related disorders like cystic fibrosis. Pretty sweet! So my dear snail, you may be pretty, but can you process enough decaying material to support the entire ecosystem AND cure cystic fibrosis? Probably not.