Experts are encouraging garden owners to track 'predatory' slugs which have been ravaging the vegetable patches of the green-fingered this year.
Spanish slugs – their scientific name is Arion vulgaris – are a fast-breeding mollusc that are believed to have first arrived in the UK about a year ago.
The menace has reportedly been 'voraciously' attacking plants, with one of the scientists leading the assault on the pest claiming to have counted 350 in just one day in his Norfolk backyard.
'The Spanish slug is a voracious predator that can survive eating many of the slug pellets that are supposed to kill them,' Dr Ian Bedford, head of entomology at the John Innes Centre in Norfolk told The Observer.
'It eats crops spared by our native slugs, tolerates drier conditions, reproduces in greater numbers and even eats dead animals and excrement.'
He has now created a website – www.slugwatch.co.uk – for members of public to learn more about the species, find out how to create traps, and to post their unhappy experiences.
'We want photos and sightings from members of the public to help build a picture of how widespread the Spanish slug is,' he added.
The slugs are known to push out other smaller species in order to dominate, and due to its large size and population growth has become adept at doing so.
They vary in colour but can grow between 8cm and 15cm by the time they reach maturity.
'The reports may also give us an idea of whether it is breeding with native species to form a hybrid combining the worst of the Spanish slug with tolerance to frosts and cold from our own species.'
Luckily the late frosts of May killed millions of the pests this year, but experts fear they may now be on the rise again.
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