GARDENERS and dog walkers in Oxfordshire are being asked to help find a very rare species of slug.

The Species Recovery Trust has launched an appeal for people across the county to help search for the elusive Lemon Slug.

The Lemon Slug (Malacolimax tenellus) is a rare mollusc, vibrant yellow with dark tentacles.

It is usually up to about 4cm in length and feeds on mushrooms, so is often seen on or near wild mushrooms.

That means that October and November can be a particularly good time to spot it.

To try to understand more about where the species survives and its habitat requirements, the Species Recovery Trust is asking people to go out and look for it.

Programs manager Charlotte Carne said: "No one really knows how many of these creatures remain in Oxfordshire, or where precisely they survive, and so we are trying to encourage people to go out and search for them.

"The Lemon Slug is thought to survive in the remaining fragments of ancient woodland in England, and is likely to have declined with the deforestation of the country over the last few centuries.

"To make matters worse, very few people have ever heard of the Lemon Slug, and even less know what it looks like and know how to submit records if they see it."

The Species Recovery Trust is a conservation charity that aims to protect the rarest species in the country, even if they are not the prettiest or most popular creatures.

Anyone who spots a bright yellow slug on their travels in Oxfordshire is asked to email charlotte.carne@speciesrecoverytrust.org.uk