Why do slugs and snails move so slowly?

One of the reasons that they move so slowly is that they must manufacture a slime track on which they move. For every inch they move, they make a thin layer of slime an inch long. This takes time as well as lots of water and energy. The advantage is that they can move along on almost ANY surface. read more

One of the things people do to repel slugs from their gardens is to put a tick layer of fine powder around the plants the slugs like. The slugs make slime to crawl over, but the fine powder sticks to the slime—and the slug—and the slug tends to back away from the powder. It just takes too much slime to overcome the powder. read more

Slugs (and snails) have literally no other means of moving than to drag their stomachs along the ground, and they have very little muscle to work with. A snake, another animal that moves like this but is much faster, has both greater size, a vertebrae and skeletal structure, and much more muscle to work with. read more