Slug mites are very small (less than 0.5 mm in length), white, and can be seen to move very rapidly over the surface of their host, particularly under the shell rim and near the pulmonary aperture.

Studies have shown that this species name has been frequently misapplied to the more widespread Riccardoella oudemansi, the white slug mite.

Once infected, individual gastropods take longer to mature and show reduced mating, activity, and feeding.

[4] The slug mite was first identified in 1710 by entomologist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur.

Their five-stage life cycle is as follows: Females lay eggs in the host lung, and then the eggs hatch in 8–12 days as six-legged larva in the lungs of hosts and undergo three nymph stages.