do slugs have a system like a spiders webwe have seen two lowering down by spinning tilthey get to the ground

I've seen this too - strange isn't it?

It is how they mate. They dangle on a special kind of slime as their mating is quite a lengthy affair. It ought to be since they are both male and female at the same time. No one knows who is doing what to whom/

Euww!

Well, that's fascinating, I never knew that Owdboggy. Nor have I ever seen snails dangling on threads though...

Crumbs, the things that go on in the garden...

I have a picture of it somewhere, but despite a careful search I cannot find it. Must be on a CD somewhere.

Usually the large yellow and grey slugs, Limax flavus and Limax maximus, mate this way. The violence of this ritual is due to the need to inseminate without getting inseminated (they are hermaphrodite) because it is cheaper/easier to spread your genes if you don't have to be the partner that produces the eggs.

Both are detritus feeders (and omnivorous) and not really garden pests.

Well my insatiable thirst for knowledge, stimulated by this post, inevitably led to the following Wikipedia information: "Apophallation is a commonly seen practice among many slugs. In apophallating species, the penis curls like a corkscrew and during mating often becomes entangled in the mate's genitalia. Apophallation allows the slugs to separate themselves by one or both of the slugs chewing off the other's penis. Once its penis has been removed, the slug is still able to mate using only the female parts of its reproductive system." Not only has GoY led to a new appreciation of slugs, I've learned a new word and have even more questions now around the female vs male slug debate! Not quite sure who "comes off" worst in this exchange :-D

I watched them on YouTube Eeeee! Yuck! LOL

Apophallation ? Not even in my dictionary ! I'm not even sure exactly what it means despite the info above. It appears to refer to a certain long forgotten lewd act ?

Well, I thought I would get castigated for going into details, seems I was wrong not to bring the minutae of mollusc reproductive practices into the public view.

Amazing what you find out on a gardening website! Couple of things - first Buddleja... your remark about their only eating detritus must mean my Lobelia cardinalis, which this year has not flowered and has been a bunch of chewed stumps about an inch high because of slugs/snails, counts not as a plant, but as detritus; and to Juliernorth.. I rather hope I'll never be in the position where I have to chew any body part off myself, either mine or someone else's... therefore, not being a slug or snail must count on the list of Reasons to be Cheerful, lol

Just looked at the David Attenborough clip on u tube. Really is amazing what nature contrives, to stir up the DNA. There is a thread involved and some twiddly translucent bits of kit near their heads....when deed done they fall to the ground. They are Considered baddies so we tend to be rather disgusted by such activities.