Red Car Property Adjacent: "Squirmy"

Photo: Stephanie Bartron, January 2, 2017.  Recent rains bring Slender Salamanders out of hiding.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Bartron writes in an email, "I usually find them in the soil, while pulling out invasive grasses or just under a layer of rotting leaves."  

Red Car Canyon, as well as gardens with shady, moist areas seem to be favored neighborhood habitat for the tiny amphibians that are sometimes mistaken for worms. 

Bartron continued, "These guys are super wiggly, small and worm-like like when you first see them. Last time I found one, its tail came off, either from fear or my weeding spade.  So there were two crazy wiggling things for a few minutes. We named him 'Squirmy' and I let the kids make a habitat for him and keep him for a few days before releasing."

Photo: Stephanie Bartron, January 2, 2017.  Using a dime for scale really gives you an idea of just how slim the Slender Salamander really is.

Bartron, who co-authored LA County handbook, The Drought Tolerant Garden, added, "They are protected in Oregon, but not here.  They're not super common though, a great example of how Southern California is a biodynamic hotspot."

Learn more about all kinds of salamanders on California Herps

Click here for all our Slender Salamander posts.  

Unexpected Wildlife Encounters: In 2008, It Was A Fox. More Unusual & Just Plain Strange Neighborhood Wildlife

Photo: Diane Edwardson, 2008. Gray fox. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Today's Eastsider story on the bobcat found on the 2 Freeway just off Corralitas Drive, got us thinking about all the other out of the ordinary wildlife encounters we've highlighted on this blog. 

I lived in the neighborhood for 18 years before I saw a gray fox - living not far from where the bobcat was recovered on the 2 Freeway.  More than a dozen neighbors witnessed the fox on different parts of the street, day & night over a several week period in 2008.  (The fox is alive but asleep in the above photo - it was having running dreams like a dog has - all 4 feet were moving.)  See all our fox related posts.

Sometimes you only know what lives in the neighborhood once it turns up dead...

Photo: C.Weir, 2009.
A Ring-necked snake turned up for the first time in Red Car Canyon in 2009.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, 2011.
A blue-green bee should not have been surprising since we'd seen a green bee in 2010.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, 2012.
A scary looking alien type bug turned out to be an Angle-Winged Katydid.

Photo: Jonathan Vandiveer, 2008. No, that's not MOTHRA! with a 7" wingspan, but a Black Witch Moth Vandiveer found on his doorstep.

Then there's the unexpected...

Photo: Diane Edwardson, 2014.
Giant Swallowtail Butterflies suddenly appeared on Corralitas last summer.

Photo: Jonathan Vandiveer, 2009.
Vandiveer documented Slender Salamanders for the first time just off Red Car Canyon.

Photo: Jonathan Vandiveer, 2011.
While not the first daytime Great Horned Owl sighting in the neighborhood, it was the first documented daytime sighting on the Red Car Property.  See all our owl related posts.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, 2013.
Red Car Canyon was the site of Cooper's Hawk vs Great Horned Owl. 

Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, 2010.
Wonder why it took so long to document a praying mantis?  There's no way we'd have seen her in the wild.

Now for the just plain strange & scary...

Photo: Jonathan Vandiveer, 2013.  The male praying mantis can walk around for days after the female cuts his head off.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, 2014.
The Tarantula Hawk is the stuff of nightmares, first documented on the Red Car Property in 2013. 

Photo: Diane Edwardson, 2014. 
One of the strangest bugs I've ever encountered was the Green Lynx Spider, who looked like a refugee from the day-glo 1980s.

Corralitas Drive: Salamander

Photo: Diane Edwardson, January 12, 2012.  While moving plants in a shady part of the garden, a neighbor found a 3" salamander.  (Click on photo to enlarge.)

This is most likely a Slender Salamander.  The neighbor thought it was a worm and picked up to place in the compost bin.  When the tail detached, she realized it was a salamander.  Note the tiny arms and legs.

The neighbor placed it in a votive holder so I could take photos.  She then released it into a  leafy potted plant in the shade. 

See a much better photo of Slender Salamanders found on Riverside Place in 2009.

 

Salamanders on Riverside Place

Photo: Jonathan Vandiveer, March 23, 2009. Slender Salamanders found on Riverside Place, near Red Car Canyon. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

This past weekend, Jonathan Vandiveer found two 5-inch long salamanders under pots in his Riverside Place garden. One was either hibernating or dead. After Jonathan shot some photos (with his work glove in the background for scale), he set them free in his garden. You may remember Jonathan's MOTHRA! discovery from last summer.

From a search of www.CaliforniaHerps.com, we narrowed it down to being a Slender Salamander (Batrachoseps), possibly a non-native to Los Angeles, California Slender Salamander (Batrachoseps attenuatus), who hitched a ride in from a nursery. However, it's more likely to be the native, Garden Slender Salamander (Batrachoseps major major).

There are 19 species of Slender Salamander on the California Herps website. Few are native to LA County. Both candidates seem suited to damp environmental conditions of Red Car Canyon near Riverside Place.

In January 2001, a neighbor's son showed me two smaller (likely juvenile) salamanders, just like the one in the photo above. He set them free where he found them in the damp, shady part of "the Meadow" on the Red Car Property.

Send us photos of your urban wildlife encounters in the Corralitas Red Car Neighborhood. Include your name, date and approximate time of photo and what the animal was doing at the time of observation: redcarproperty@gmail.com.