Armstrong Redwoods Day Trip (2008.02.16)

Arshi and I got away for a day up at Armstrong Redwoods. It's a decent state park of redwoods, no bells whistles or waterfalls. The fauna is pretty similar to Redwoods close to the Bay Area. They have a lot of california newts, slenders, and supposively some of the pacific giant salamander, but I didn't run across any. The park also has a lot of sudden oak death problems (Phytophthora ramorum). The JGI that I worked at sequenced this organism a couple years ago, because we hope that by understanding it we can learn how to fight it. When we got home I made sure to scrub my shoe with soap, because the spred of sudden oak death effects a wide range of trees, not just oaks and its important to try and keep the problem quarantineed to areas.

Below are a couple of pictures from the area:

Fungus is great. These little jewels appeared to be pushing out a sappy looking material on a exposed stump

I
I believe this is a california red-bellied newt (Taricha rivularis). I think this is the first time I've ever come across one of these guys. I've seen pletny of Taricha granulosa(Rough Skinned Newt) and Taricha tourosa (California Newt). This family of critters are some of the most poisonous critters in the area. The tetrodotoxin (TTX) that they produce is lethal around 5ug (thats 1/1,000,000 the size of your standard paperclip). Needless to say I wash my hands after handeling these guys.


And of course the redwoods. The oldest tree in the park is 1400 years old.