Locomotoring

A headline caught my eye a few weeks ago – Assembly Bill(AB 1850) passed recognizing the banana slug as the official state slug. It took a bill – not scientists! A slug joined other well known symbols, like the California grizzly bear and the California poppy. That is when I looked up the list of California State symbols and learned about the lesser known symbols such as the California quail (1932) and Golden trout (1947). Call me silly, but I was expecting to find weed on the list. Anyways, I adore this slug, it is yellow, it is large, and it lives on our forest floors. They are caretakers of the giant Redwoods, our state tree. They eat plants that compete with the Redwood seedlings but never the Redwood seedlings. Somehow they know that these little Redwood seedlings one day will become the giants that will give them back the moist forest floor.

While we had picked up hiking frequency in 2022, I saw my first one in 2023. I was so excited! But once I started noticing them, I saw several, particularly when we started looking for mushrooms.