Mushroom Hunter

Day 22: Thinking I would be alone in the forest, I had tucked a perhaps-bag into my kit even without any significant expectations of finding dinner on ground I'd scoured only a few days earlier. In any event, I'd wanted to check the Mycena to see if it "bled" (it did not, putting my proposed identification in the bin), and I was going along, collecting spiderwebs and the occasional occupant on my face and clothing as I pushed through the brush, when the realization hit me that I was not alone. Another mushroom hunter was surveying my territory! With all due stealth, I knelt down behind a log and adjusted the camera for the dim light. I was going to catch the culprit in the act. I was surprised when my competitor ignored a perfectly good one-inch Boleta for a tiny translucent and exactly bite-sized micro-'shroom of indeterminate species. The process was fascinating to watch. Initially, Sluggo's eye-stalks were withdrawn (in fact, at a distance, I had mistaken him for a second small Boleta). Perhaps my footfalls had sent vibrations via the forest floor, alerting him to the presence of a potential predator, but as I waited motionless beside the log, his confidence grew and his eye-stalks lengthened. He began to creep slowly over the moss, and then as some slug-sense detected the tinier fungus, his head raised as if to say, "Oh, lunchtime!" Arching the forward portion of his body, he then "pounced" upon his quarry and consumed it in its entirety in a single protracted gulp. With the excitement over, we both moved on, the human to explore, the mushroom hunter to go in pursuit of an appropriate dessert.

Have A Banana

Day 255: Have a banana. I have seen larger specimens (they grow 'em big on the Olympic Peninsula), but this one still qualifies as a whopper. It took me entirely by surprise. I'd pulled the kayak in through a tangle of branches, beached it on a narrow shingle and was just going around behind a large cedar tree for purposes unsuitable for mention in polite company, and as I went to put my hand on the tree for stability, teetering on the soft, spongy soil, I saw the banana. It was about three feet up from ground level and had a mouthful of lichen. Suffice to say, I was startled by the monster in the gloom of the deeply shaded wood, and jumped out of my skin as I realized I'd nearly leaned on it. The span of my hand is seven and a half inches; note that the slug's head and shoulders are curled somewhat (tail is at the top), adding at least another inch to its total length.

Ariolimax columbianus is our largest Pacific Northwest slug. They can reach sizes up to ten inches long. According to Wikipedia, they are the second largest species of terrestrial slug in the world! Many have dark spots on their body, but the most common colours are the sickly olive-green (shown here) or yellow, the latter giving rise to the common name Banana Slug. They may be so extensively spotted that they appear black (a very ripe banana!), or may even be entirely white. Whatever colour they may be, their size is the clue to their identity. And now you know that bananas grow on cedar trees.