Dear Little JO,
I guess technically it’s your turn to write. But I feel like writing a letter more than I feel like starting my ecology report on amphibians. And it’s not like we can’t cross over once in a while. Khang doesn’t seem too fussy about how many letters I write, now that it’s obvious I’m actually sticking with the assignment.
We did a roof today down in Bloomington. All day there were dozens of turkey buzzards in the sky. I asked Sylvan what he thought they were after and he said maybe a deer.
I chose amphibians for this ecology report because once in the forest I found an animal I couldn’t believe was even real. A tiny lizard red as a fire truck. I was maybe nine or ten. It skittered across my palm and dug its way under the leaves and was gone. The fastest living thing I’d ever held. I remember looking it up afterward and it wasn’t actually a lizard but a newt. A Red Eft. The librarian told me the Red Eft doesn’t live in Minnesota. She showed me a map at the back of the book with its habitat range. It must have come down from Canada, she said, around the whole north shore of Lake Superior.
Turns out mostly this newt never leaves the water. It goes straight from larval stage to aquatic adult, which is olive-yellow, speckled, with a flattened tail. But sometimes for unknown reasons it takes a detour. It grows lungs. Turns red. Goes to the woods and spends one to three years as a Red Eft before it returns to its pond or river and transforms back into a water creature. Red Efts are bolder than other salamanders. They hang out aboveground and gather in groups. They don’t even mind the sun. Probably it helps that the red skin is toxic to predators.
I don’t know why I’m giving you all these details. Chances are not good that you’ll ever spot a Red Eft in this part of the country. But I guess if you ever do you’ll know how chancy and amazing a thing it is.
Sincerely,
AK