[picture source: Washington Herp Atlas]Finally, in the senior year of my degree in Organismal Biology, I'm studying Little Dudes directly. Anything that moves (especially if it is vertebrate but even if it's not) and can be seen by my naked eye is what I consider a "Little Dude." I went into Biology not only to teach high school kids, but to study Little Dudes too. I've had years and years of pre-req's like physics, general chemistry, Cellular Biology -- years of minutiae and numbers and abstractly small things -- years without Little Dudes. It's very nice to finally be studying something more tangible, alive and non-human.
In my Vertebrate Zoology lab we are working on identifying Oregon vertebrates. Today we covered amphibians, including the local little guy pictured above. Did you know that many, if not most, of the salamanders in Oregon (family Plethodontidae) are lung-less? They breathe exclusively through their skin.
I picked this little dude to mention today because it is named after one of my favorite near-town hikes, Larch Mountain. Maybe 45 minutes away and offering hikes,views (you can see Hickman Butte lookout with binoculars from there) and lots of big second-growth timber. One of the many reasons I love living in Portland.
Enjoy your local wildlife,
Bp
3 comments:
Next time your out here, just down from my house is a protected "Wild Flower" Reserve, its maybe, like, one set of rock outcroppings on a playground in a school yard.. but when i was young we used to go catch buckets (Literally buckets) of salamanders and snakes..
That's a date! I'll have some good references by then for Herps.
Excellent! :D
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