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Monsanto genetically modifies slugs to produce oil

Bunkum News has learned that Monsanto has been granted a patent for a slug which will be able to produce an oily slim which is highly combustible.  A scientist with Monsanto, Bartholomew Tarradiddle, interviewed by Bunkum News reporter Crystal Really, said Monsanto had been working on modifying the little beasties to make them susceptible to one of their herbicides when they realized they had found a gene which could alter the type of slim it produced.

Tarradiddle said this slug, deroceras reticulatum is almost exclusively restricted to cultivated areas, usually in open habitats, in meadows, near roadsides, in ruins, gardens and parks, not inside forests. It shelters under stones and ground litter (It does not burrow into the soil). It is active at night.

This species is omnivorous, feeding mainly on fresh leaves and fruits or seedings.  Deroceras reticulatum is a serious pest of agricultural crops, garden cultivations and horticulture.  After several years with continuous moist weather conditions abundance can seriously increase. Life cycle covers a few months, usually two generations.
 
The main reproductive phase is in summer and autumn. It lays hundreds of eggs which hatch during early summer. Maximum age is about a year. Slugs die at the first frosts. Usually only eggs hibernate, sometimes also juveniles. This species originated in Europe and Northern Africa but has in modern times invaded parts of the USA and Canada, and has become especially devastating to soybean crops in Argentina.
 
A spokesperson for Monsanto who would only speak off record, told Bunkum News that they were fostering the modified slugs in a concrete cistern by feeding them garbage and they were reproducing profusely. He said they had scraped the slim off the floor and walls and experimented with burning it in an oil furnace. He said the game plan was to sell slugs to home owners so they could raise them in their basements and heat their homes with the goop. He also laughingly said Monsanto would make most of their money from them through lawsuits for illegal possession because the little rascals were next to impossible to keep in a confined space.