Sacred Seeds

The Adventures of Banana Slug Woman

California Redwoods, Muir Woods National Monument

I had a lovely walk on one of my favorite hiking trails yesterday. Its up in the Oakland hills and winds through a mixed forest of redwood, oak, and laurel trees. In places the trail is cool and dark with the scent of moist earth, and in others its open to the sun, warm and smelling of copal and dry grass. As you walk you meet other hikers, some human, some canine, step out of the way of bicyclists and the occasional horse back rider. You also get to see the local wild life. The trail is right in the heart of Oakland, so we don’t, as far as I have ever heard, have the problems with Cougars getting scared by humans on their turf, but we do get to see lizards baking in the sun, loads of dragon flies, ravens hawks, vultures and more small birds than I know the names of. You also get to see my favorite invertebrate of them all – the Banana Slug!

Why the Banana Slug? I’m so glad you asked

Ariolimax californicus ?

History Time!
Way back in the mists of time, I had the opportunity to spend my junior year of College at the University of California, Santa Cruz. It was an amazing year filled with great change, monstrous heartache and huge emotional growth. It also introduced me to the wonders of the Redwood Forest, fog banks that take over whole mountain sides (I kid you not! My landlady once spent five minutes honking her horn at me while I watched a wall of fog eat the upper half of campus!) And of course, I got to learn about the UCSC mascot, the Banana Slug.

Ariolimax dolichophallus

The school used to have the Sea Lion as their mascot, but that all changed when the administration miscalculated the popularity of the Banana Slug. The story, as I was told, is that because the campus sits on a protected redwood forest, the natural habitat of the Banana Slug, the things were all over the place, and so people had been joking that the Banana Slug was the true mascot of the school. Well apparently one day the administration got it in to their heads to humor the student body with a joke poll about which animal should be the mascot, the Sea Lion or the Banana Slug. (Did they not realize who their student body was???) When the dust settled UCSC had a slimy pal for a mascot – the Banana Slug had won.

Ariolimax columbianus

Now the odd thing about all this is, I never saw a Banana Slug in the whole year I was at UCSC. It wasn’t until I moved to the Bay Area five years later that I saw my first one, in the hands of one of the docents at Muir Woods. Since then I have seen, and handled six or seven of them around the area, I just adore them. They are slimy and cold and funny looking and … I have no idea why I like them, but I do!

Me and a friend in Muir Woods a few years back.
Photo by Jamie Morgan

Lesson Time!
There are three types of Banana Slugs, the Pacific (Ariolimax columbianus), California (Ariolimax californicus), and the Slender (Ariolimax dolichophallus). All three are native to the moist coastal forests of the Pacific Northwest and can be found from lower Alaska to just south of Santa Cruz, CA. Their name comes from their tendency to appear bright banana yellow, though they can be olive green, black, or white.

A Slender BS I photographed in Muir Woods

I know I have seen the Pacific and the Slender ones along my favorite trail in the Oakland Hills. Those two are the easiest to pick out as the Pacific has black spots along its top side/back and the Slender is exactly as it sounds. From what I have seen around the web, the California maybe the most yellow of the three, but I haven’t been able to confirm theory. Certainly there are many very yellow, wide, spotless Ariolimax labeled califonicus all over the web, so one can hope. I have yet to see any of these in person, more’s the pity!

Link Time!

Banana slug
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_slug

The Biogeography of the Banana Slug
by Jasmine Morrow, student in Geography 316, Fall 2000
San Francisco State University
http://bss.sfsu.edu/holzman/courses/fall00projects/bananaslug.html

Banana Slug Sightings in the Forest of Big Basin State Park
Text by J. Zimmerman, Ph.D.
All photos (c) 2002-2010 Scott Peden, Photographer and Docent at Big Basin State Park, local plant expert and nature guide
http://www.icogitate.com/~tree/bigBasinSlugSpotted.htm

Campus Mascot
How the Banana Slug became UCSC’s official mascot
(aka their version of the story!)
http://www.ucsc.edu/about/campus_mascot.asp

Tags: Banana Slugs, local fawna, Muir Woods, Photos, Redwood Trees, Sf/Bay Area, UC Santa Cruz