TY - JOUR A1 - Hutchinson, John M.C. A1 - Reise, Heike A1 - Robinson, David G. T1 - A biography of an invasive terrestrial slug : the spread, distribution and habitat of Deroceras invadens T2 - NeoBiota N2 - The article reviews distribution records of Deroceras invadens (previously called D. panormitanum and D. caruanae), adding significant unpublished records from the authors’ own collecting, museum samples, and interceptions on goods arriving in the U.S.A. By 1940 D. invadens had already arrived in Britain, Denmark, California, Australia and probably New Zealand; it has turned up in many further places since, including remote oceanic islands, but scarcely around the eastern Mediterranean (Egypt and Crete are the exceptions), nor in Asia. Throughout much of the Americas its presence seems to have been previously overlooked, probably often being mistaken for D. laeve. New national records include Mexico, Costa Rica, and Ecuador, with evidence from interceptions of its presence in Panama, Peru, and Kenya. The range appears limited by cold winters and dry summers; this would explain why its intrusion into eastern Europe and southern Spain has been rather slow and incomplete. At a finer geographic scale, the occurrence of the congener D. reticulatum provides a convenient comparison to control for sampling effort; D. invadens is often about half as frequently encountered and sometimes predominates. Deroceras invadens is most commonly found in synanthropic habitats, particularly gardens and under rubbish, but also in greenhouses, and sometimes arable land and pasture. It may spread into natural habitats, as in Britain, South Africa, Australia and Tenerife. Many identifications have been checked in the light of recent taxonomic revision, revealing that the sibling species D. panormitanum s.s. has spread much less extensively. A number of published or online records, especially in Australia, have turned out to be misidentifications of D. laeve. KW - Biological invasion KW - Pest slug KW - Pulmonata KW - Agriolimacidae KW - Deroceras panormitanum Y1 - 2014 UR - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/39770 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-397708 SN - 1314-2488 VL - 2014 IS - 23 ER -