Earth to Santa Cruz: Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park

You can tell by the split on its back that it was
a cicada that discarded its skin. The
unanswered question is - why in the meadow?
According to Natural History, it uses those
enlarged front pincers to cling to vegetation
as it climbs up the redwood and moves about
in the canopy.

Title says it all! Best birthday evar at Henry Cowell Redwoods, which is really close to campus. Henry Cowell is known for its old-growth grove of redwoods (the tallest is about 270 feet), its unusual sandhill habitat (which harbors some young ponderosa pines), and its abundance of both burly, twisty redwoods and albino redwoods--individuals (or root sprouts of existing redwoods--I can't figure it out) which lack pigment and parasite off a host redwood's roots for nutrients since they can't photosynthesize. Professor Jarmila Pitterman here at UC Santa Cruz has done a bunch of research on them.

Some more updates for those interested in natural history: The other day my friends Wesley, Alex and I caught a snake which Wesley had spotted. It was little and blue-eyed, and after a look at Natural History we determined it was an aquatic garter snake--although we found it in a grassy meadow instead of in water.

In the same meadow, some friends of mine found the discarded skin of a woodland cicada clinging to a blade of grass--which is odd, because Natural History indicated that the cicadas' entire life cycle consists of spending two years underground sucking on roots, climbing out and up their host redwood's trunk during the spring of their second year, leaving their old skins near the base of the tree, and then finding relative safety in the redwood canopy, where they click their mating call, mate, bear offspring, and then die. No meadow involved. It is a puzzlement.

Here are some pictures of all three updates. Thanks to Alex, Wes and I don't remember who else for the pictures!