An Irish visitor has been spotted in Shropshire for the first time – he’s small, green and yellow and loves to feast on lichens.

The newcomer, an Irish yellow slug, was discovered in Shropshire Wildlife Trust’s garden in Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury.

Brian Eversham, director of the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Peterborough, who found two of the slugs under some logs, said: “It is a very pretty beast. They are mottled green and yellow, with bluish tentacles and browse mainly on algae, lichens and fungi, occasionally on dead plants.

“Gardeners need have no concern, this slug is not a destructive creature like some of our native species.”

Mr Eversham said no two Irish yellow slugs have the same pattern of pale and dark marbling making it quite easy to recognise individuals and track their movements over the weeks and months without having to mark them in any way.

The creatures can live for at least four years in the wild, which is longer than most mice, voles and small birds.

The Irish yellow slug is of eastern European origin but was identified in Ireland about 30 years ago.

It was later discovered near Liverpool and Leeds and has spread rapidly across Britain.

It has a fondness for bird seed and rabbit food and can sometimes be found in outhouses feasting on wallpaper, apparently it finds the cellulose in the paste delicious.

Mr Eversham also identified four kinds of woodlice, three species of centipede, seven different snails and a total of nine slug species on his visit last week.