WW: Winter waterdog

(Taricha granulosa. One of the many good things in life.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Dunn's salamander

(Plethodon dunni; a melanistic specimen, lacking the wide, yellow-green back stripe and mottling typical of the breed. Another lungless North Coast salamander with no aquatic stage. Instead it lays its eggs under rotten wood, and they hatch into tiny, fully terrestrial young identical to the adults.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Hermit Habit

The wildlife of the North Pacific rainforest is famously reserved; where the East has its flashy cardinals, red efts, and indigo buntings, our own rubber boas, rough-skinned newts, and varied thrushes are modestly beautiful. The odd Steller's jay or goldfinch may be a pleasant change of pace, but we're satisfied to return to the brown and russet uniform of our understated nation when they've passed.

While sitting my 100 Days on the Mountain, I sometimes daydreamed about founding a North Coast-native order of forest monks. And should that fancy ever gel, we will sit in the forest of my forebears, wearing the habit of our Douglas squirrel hosts: a hooded robe of honest Cascade umber, over an ochre jersey.



(Text edited from the notes for my book, 100 Days on the Mountain. Photo of Tamiasciurus douglasii courtesy of Ivie Metzen, the US National Park Service, and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Long-toed salamander

(Ambystoma macrodactylum. Politely displaying the reason for both the common name and binomial.)

WW: Handful o' waterdogs

(Found all three of these crossing the same two feet of trail. Spring spawning season. More information on Taricha granulosa here.)

The Face of Power

I found this guy beside the compost bin last November. His legal name is Taricha granulosa, but his friends call him the rough-skinned newt. (And here in the woods we call him a waterdog.) This lot are pretty much year-rounders on the North Coast, liable to show up on rainy roads and trails, night or day, in any season. Along with the Pacific chorus frog, they're a fixture of rural life here.

They're also personable little fellows, unfrightened, if slightly irritated, by handling. (A close relative, the firebellied newt, is often sold in pet stores.) In fact, fearlessness is a waterdog trademark, as they often hike hundreds of yards, in the open and in broad daylight, from the ponds where they live and breed.

This is not exactly courage on their part, however; Taricha is also one of the most poisonous creatures on earth. Let an attacker get the slightest bit mouthy with one, and a droplet of tetrodotoxin will sear its tongue and throat like molten iron. There will follow much choking and flailing, with convulsions and foaming at the mouth, progressing to paralysis, and finally, not nearly soon enough, a severe case of death. There is no known antidote, and so far as we know, only one creature on the entire planet is immune.

Of course, this may be cold comfort if your attacker has already bitten your leg off. But that's just an inconvience for my little sangha mate here: he can grow that back. Or an eye. Or a jaw. Or an intestine. Or his spinal chord. Or his heart.

So get a good look at this face: this is what true power looks like. Complete absence of violence or arrogance. No monologuing, no trash-talking, no machismo of any kind. He's a dumpy little blighter, without lurid fangs or claws or rippling muscles. And he could kill you, horribly, without lifting a Muppety finger. He knows it, too; that's why he doesn't have to prance and swagger.

Remember that next time somebody starts making speeches about power and glory.

The Sputnik of Salamanders

This is an ensatina. I found her while clearing some rotten wood out from under the lower deck.

Ensatinas are found only on the Pacific Coast of North America, and very common here. The local race is this nondescript, nightcrawler-like colour, which is what I thought she was at first. They're about the most inoffensive of creatures, and certainly the gentlest of predators, in the rainforest. Ensatinas are capable of making a creaking noise, though they seldom do; they can also move very quickly if they feel they must, but they rarely do. You can reach out and pick one up without the least fear or haste; all you'll get is a reproachful look from those limpid eyes. Very occasionally, if you're out well after dark on a moist night, or you open the door of a clammy shed, you'll see one of these little fellows afoot on the moss, looking for something to kill. Which it will do, very cautiously, if the opportunity arises. Generally they prefer to hide under logs and leaves, even on the hunt.

Ensatinas especially like rotten wood, because it attracts termites and other prey they can eat without leaving home. It also retains moisture, and since they have no lungs, their skin must remain hydrated or they will suffocate.

Getting by without a respiratory system is just one of the astounding skills of my seemingly insignificant little sister. Unlike most other amphibians, she will lay her eggs on the ground, under rotten wood if at all possible, and generally just three of them. When the time comes, these will hatch into tiny perfect salamanders. No immersion, no egg mass, no tadpole stage. Indeed, generations of ensatinas may rise, thrive, and die before any of them happens, quite by chance, to take a swim. Therefore, though she may not look like much, this ensatina represents a decisive step forward in bio-engineering, away from the newts and toward the lizards. In evolutionary terms, she's the Sputnik of salamanders.

Nor is the Wankel bit the only point of interest this local-girl-made-good holds for evolutionary biology. Some of her nation in Central California have formed what's called a "ring species," a linear progression of geographically-related subspecies that proceed in observable, stair-step fashion through measurable variations, until the first and last are no longer capable of interbreeding. (Some of those Californians are real lookers, too. Big deal. Ours have more heart.) In other words, you can actually document ensatina evolution, not through the fossil record, but across a living, (non-)breathing population. And that's where it all started, brothers and sisters: it was Darwin's study of a similar ring of finches that lead to his famous kensho.

I've been a fan of life all my life. As a kid I especially liked amphibians, and particularly salamanders. Ensatinas were not my favourite; in those days I preferred bigger, flashier entries, like water dogs, redbacks, and mud puppies.

A guy gets older, and looks deeper.

Cereal box prize:  Feed me, Seymour! Venus fly traps. Easily the coolest plants in North America, possibly the world. Every little boy has had one. Every little boy has killed one. Most adults consider them unkeepable. Not so! These folks keep hundreds of them! Outdoors! In Oregon! Read all about it.