The Banana Slug Thread (Page 5)

cause he has a sub-par graph..... look at the Pickle graph... 60% of the time, it works every time

Speedball, My numbers don't appear to be correct either. 

I am showing run miles of 54.1 as of Saturday, that is 77.3% and bike miles of 123 for a 61.5% number.  You have me at 73% and 42% respectively.  You trying to kill me?

Dear Speedball

Your out....... Ott13979 is our new leader

Regards

Banana Slug Kingdom

A pickled slug?  I don't THINK so.  That just sounds plan nasty.  I think Speedball just unhide the wrong columns on this weeks posting.  I am sure he has the right numbers there somewhere.

That or he is just lulling you into a false sense of security, when he will spring the trap.  Where all the Banana Slugs have it 100% and zoom past the pickles.  The final numbers will look like this.

Banana Slugs -   100%
Fighting Pickles - 93.3%
Boll Weevils  -     92.5%
Griffins    -            91.2%
Wombats -           88.7%
Thunderwolves -  85.6%

Sorry fellow sluggies - I posted last weeks chart.  I DID however send the correct one to Shawn this morning....

And Scott -looks like I added your Sunday run in there. 

That is fine with me, it is not like it makes that much differnce to the totals.  I figured you had the right numbers, and I wouldn't want to be led by a pickle.

 String me up...I only did 4.5; a nagging hip problem cut it short.  I'll do my best for the rest of the week.  Go slugs!

OK Slugs...last night I got 7miles on the bike and a 5+ mile run in.  (for those who looked I accidentally posted it to todays log, but have it fixed).  Want to get some miles on the bike tonight.

Go Slugs!

Nice job Shawn!  I am taking some for the team myself....I don't do this many bricks getting ready for a tri.

Good job Speedy, you da MAN!  Or would that be You DA Slug?

I would rather follow an honorable guy like you, than someone like Eric.  He will stoop to any measure to insult and call into question the character of his competition.  I tell you, he is such a Slug, but not a Banana Slug!

Eric, After reading this article, I don't think you want to be a slug.

From The Western Society of Malacologists Field Guide to the Slug

Although slugs are hermaphroditic, each animal equipped with both male and female reproductive organs, they mate with themselves only if no other slugs are around. Given a choice, they seek partners with which to trade genetic material, a move that, by favoring the passage of chromosomes from both parents to the offspring, nurtures a healthier pool of slug genes. The actual exchange of sperm is preceded by an elaborate courtship ritual, which supposedly reduces the chances of two individuals of separate species mating and giving rise to hybrids.

During courtship, two slugs will circle each other, often for hours, with both partners engaged in ritualized bouts of lunging, nipping, and sideswiping with their tails. The two slugs may also display their disproportionately large sex organs. The great gray garden slug's penis is nearly half its total body length. In fact, penis size is reflected in the scientific name of one banana slug species: dolichophallus -- Latin for "long penis."

"The sight of a courting pair of slugs majestically circling one another and ceremoniously rasping each other's flanks while they solemnly wave their enormous penises overhead puts the most improbably athletic couples of Pompeii and Khajuraho into a more appropriate and severely diminished perspective," note researchers C. David Rollo and William G. Wellington. "Athletic" is an even more appropriate adjective for great gray garden slugs, which are able to copulate in midair, suspended by stretchy strands of mucus up to 17 3/4 inches.

As courtship progresses, a banana slug pair intertwines, wrapping themselves into an "S" position and stimulating each other for several more hours. Their genital areas swell as the pair move even closer together. Penetration takes place, then each slug alternately releases and receives sperm.

But in the case of the banana slug, that's hardly the end of this amazing routine. Now the slugs must disengage -- a challenge for two animals so amply endowed and thoroughly covered in sticky mucus. After long bouts of writhing and pulling, the pair may resort to what scientists call apophallation. Translated, this means that one slug gnaws off the penis of the other.

Is there an advantage to such odd behavior? Yes, according to Adrian Forsyth, author of A Natural History of Sex. The apophallated slug, says Forsyth, "cannot regrow his penis and is now obligated to be a female and forced to offer eggs. It may be that the castrator can raise his reproductive success by increasing locally the density of females." Slug scientist Albert Mead has suggested that apophallation may be nature's way of maintaining the species. After all, he writes, in other animal species, gigantism has been a precursor to extinction. Only by submitting to the shears can banana slugs maintain their inordinate organs.

are you suggesting that slug team is nothing but a bunch of hermaphrodites? funny you say that.... Speedball the other day in the locker room seemed a bit shy.... hmmmmmm

"they mate with themselves only if no other slugs are around"

what's weird about that?

You know Eric that is wrong on SO many levels. 

heck who am I kidden Speedball is proud of his dual gender identity (see picture below)

gotta do something at work..... by the way Speedball will tell you that I photo-shopped that picture..... I scream BUSH LEAGUE..... few years ago after a cocktail (or two) outside a local 7-11... Speeball confessed that he went through what some would call "experimental phase" the picture above was from a GlamorShots session....