Killer slugs on their way to the UK

Britain is expecting an invasion of Spanish Slugs which are known to devastate gardens and destroy crops.

The five-inch brown and orange slugs breed quickly and in huge numbers, causing havoc for homeowners.

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As they are immune to regular slug poison, they are difficult to stop and now thousands are on their way from Spain thanks to the mild winter and wet June, the Daily Mail reports.

Earlier this week, Suffolk gardener Jo Rothery spoke of losing entire patches of leeks in just one night after the "cannibalistic" slugs preyed on the veggies under the cover of darkness.

Speaking to the Ipswich Star, Jo said she has waged war on the critters over the past four years.

The 77-year-old said she once discovered 500 of the Arion vulgaris, as they are known scientifically, inside the walls of her half-acre garden.

In the same year, she counted 3,500 of them from July to October.

"They breed quickly and they eat everything," she said. "They ate all the petals from two sunflowers I was growing for the Rotary Club – one of which was eight feet tall."

Mrs Rothery suspects they probably entered Britain on imported plants.

According to the Torquay Herald Express, Spanish Slugs lay an average of 400 eggs per year, compared to the 100 a year that regular slugs lay.

As slug poison does not work on the slimy creatures, pouring boiling water over them has been suggested.