It's a good thing I'm not easily freaked out.
...
I was ripping apart the rotting plywood that covers one of the walls along the edge of our yard. The wood was coming apart like brittle paper, and I was wearing long suede gauntlets, to protect my skin, and keep the spiders at bay. (And whoo boy, were there a lot of spiders!)
As I pulled the plywood away I started seeing what I though were worms, squirming around.
Then I noticed...
I grabbed one, and ran into the house, yelling for Robb to get me some sort of dish. The slimy slithery creature was writhing all over my glove, and I was afraid I would drop it, before I got a photograph.
This, my friends, is a California Slender Salamander. I know this is a crappy photograph, but will you look at those teeny-tiny toes?
Over the course of the afternoon, I relocated ten or eleven of these strange little creatures. I was worried that they would get crushed under the demolition, so I moved them to a new home in our moss-encrusted wood pile.
That's the thing about having a house whose back yard is filled with decaying lumber. There's plenty to look at. Anyone know anything about mushrooms?
Oh how cool is this? My friend Ken-Ichi tells me that this is probably a slime mold, known commonly at wolf's milk or toothpaste slime.
I was ripping apart the rotting plywood that covers one of the walls along the edge of our yard. The wood was coming apart like brittle paper, and I was wearing long suede gauntlets, to protect my skin, and keep the spiders at bay. (And whoo boy, were there a lot of spiders!)
As I pulled the plywood away I started seeing what I though were worms, squirming around.
Then I noticed...
the worms had eyes.
I grabbed one, and ran into the house, yelling for Robb to get me some sort of dish. The slimy slithery creature was writhing all over my glove, and I was afraid I would drop it, before I got a photograph.
This, my friends, is a California Slender Salamander. I know this is a crappy photograph, but will you look at those teeny-tiny toes?
Over the course of the afternoon, I relocated ten or eleven of these strange little creatures. I was worried that they would get crushed under the demolition, so I moved them to a new home in our moss-encrusted wood pile.
That's the thing about having a house whose back yard is filled with decaying lumber. There's plenty to look at. Anyone know anything about mushrooms?
Oh how cool is this? My friend Ken-Ichi tells me that this is probably a slime mold, known commonly at wolf's milk or toothpaste slime.
Comments
I took it to work and got a jewelry buddy to cast it in silver. Not a totally successful casting, but you could see the toes.
~~Doublesaj~~
Either way, please don't eat them- nor the salamanders... jeeze, even MORE critters to get xmas gifts for this year!
Annalisa
So, about six months ago, I learned that the little guys I had been handling so nonchalantly are toxic. From their skin, the secrete the same tetrodotoxin that is found in pufferfish. Lethal in very small amounts:
http://people.uwec.edu/piercech/animals/newt.htm
My desire to save the little creatures (yet again) almost got me killed. I don't expect I'll ever learn though.
LunaSea
Stacey
It really sounds like something that I would do.
Save the 'manders! And don't worry about that pesky skin-absorbed poison...
They told me so, right before I would lick them.
Annalisa
Martha