Good Slime and Bad Slime, Table Mountain 3/23/12

The "pink slime" recently approved for school lunches is giving slime a bad name.  These two slime-covered beauties from our recent Table Mountain excursion are very well adapted to a place that is hot and dry for much of the year.  The top photo is of a banana slug and the bottom one is a newt.  Both were found in a shady canyon below one of Table Mountain's major waterfalls.  Nearby I also found a Slender Salamander under a rock in damp soil.  These are known on the surface for a very brief time in spring then crawl down cracks in the basalt where they might spend most of the year 20 feet or more below the surface.