It's true. I signed up
for a class because I have not had much work during the days. I did it for the
lichens and mosses and now I've done it with amphibians. Just me and a whole
slew of nice and kind retired folks delving into the slimy world of amphibians!
Frogs, Toads,
Salamanders, Newts... those were on the menu. No, we didn't eat anything!
When I was in 8th grade,
my science teacher, Mr. Anderson, gave me a newt because I thought they were so
cool. I brought it home on a Thursday, it was dead the following Sunday night.
I obviously didn't study its needs well enough. Sorry about that, newt. My
brother, ages five, even asked in such a cute way, "Dave, where's the
newt, Dave?" Dead and buried in the backyard.
So this was some
redemption. and yet another taxonomy to study. Knowing very little, except
seeing a tree frog attached to my window at age ten, I grew up with very little
exposure to amphibians. There were reptiles about in southern California, but I
didn't engage with too many moist-skinned creatures. Maybe I didn't hang out in
the right outdoor spaces, maybe development in Irvine drove them all to local
extinction.
After learning about so
many local species in four hours of class time, we had a three hour field
excursion to find them. As such, we went to a new place for me, the Stimson Family Nature Reserve, near Lake Whatcom.
Some older trees in there made for rich habitat.
You find salamanders by
flipping over rocks and logs... but make sure to put them back. After ten or
more unsuccessful attempts, I finally saw a large one! My first instinct was to
leave it alone, but I wanted to have a field specimen that we could all look
at. So I grabbed it and brought it to the group. I finally caught a salamander
in the wild. It looked like this:
(retrieved on April 12,
2013 from: http://www.wildpnw.com/2011/02/21/the-western-red-backed-salamander/#.UWikNqKkofQ)
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|
|
(retrieved on April 12,
2013 from: http://www1.dnr.wa.gov/nhp/refdesk/herp/html/feat_plve.html)
Why, it's the Western
Red-backed Salamander (Plethadon vehiculum) of course! In Bellingham, it is
more yellow-backed than red-backed, but it is indeed the same species. It was
about three inches long, from snout to vent (don't include the tail in the
measurement). Though it was wriggly and fast-moving, we all got a chance
to see the dorsal stripe and even the "knee pads" what were the same
color. Cool!
I caught a later,
smaller one later in the day and may have injured its tail. I feel bad that my
zeal for nabbing it may have caused injury, but it's leap from my notebook (at
waist height) to the forest floor also didn't seem to bother it much. i should
have put it back where I found it, but I was so excited to show the group that
I tried to catch up and show them. A good learning experience; leave it where I
find it!
Later we came across this Ensatina (Ensatina eschscoltzii). The
constriction at the base of the tail is a characteristic that the tail will
come off if grabbed by a predator. The tail will detach and wiggle in order to
attract the attention of anything that is trying to eat the salamander.
We also went past a pond
and someone found a Pacific Chorus Frog (Hyla
regilla or Pseudacris regilla).
We saw how brown it was compared to some of the greener individuals we studied.
Cool! It brings my childhood back around for some closure. How wonderful!
What a great outdoor
place to explore. As the sun faded away we ended the day happy and complete
after having found some of the species we had studied. Here’s to an
introduction to amphibians: Cheers!
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