Happy Newt Year! Those who have followed me for a long time have probably noticed a marked uptick in the frequency of newt mentions in the last few years. What’s the deal with that? It seems so random. Am I engaging in occult practices that require eye of newt?
The simplest version is that when I moved from San Diego back to the Pacific Northwest (had lived in Seattle prior to being “rented” by California for 18 years), I landed in newt territory.
My street is largely undeveloped, leaving plenty of forested critter habitat. A slow-moving creek—dammed by beavers into more of a pond—runs a few hundred meters away, which anchors the local newts. When it rains, especially in fall and spring, we find newts slowly prowling the area. Just as lost keys are more likely to be found under a lamp-post simply because light allows them to be seen, newts are frequently found on streets and driveways because they stand out on such plain surfaces. I suspect it goes deeper than this, in that they also hunt worms, which find their way onto pavement during the rain, and are also perhaps easier for the newts to spot. Rainy time is dinnertime!
I could never have predicted it a few years back, but my wife and I find ourselves smitten by the newts. We love and adore them. I hope this post provides at least a little appreciation as to why.
Description
A rare two-newt convergence, showing color and size variation. Photo by author.
Our newts are rough-skinned newts (Taricha granulosa), which are generally a rusty-brown color on top and a vibrant orange below that reminds me of an orange-cream popsicle, but one that should not be licked. I have known neighbors to mistake them for lizards. Much more forgivable is calling them salamanders (because they are a type of salamander). They have large heads with big eyes, and I swear a sort of smile. Their skin is bumpy, they have four toes on each foot, and their long tail is a vertical blade—giving them powerful swimming capabilities.
The California Herps site contains many pictures, descriptions of behaviors, and details about of the lives of rough-skinned newts. It is estimated that they live for 12 years, which surprised me. That’s enough time to build a reasonable sense of the world in which they live.
No Newts is Good Newts
Newts move so slowly (more on this later), that they run a great risk of being smashed by cars. It’s a heart-wrenching and gruesome sight to see a newt whose innards have been forced out through their mouth. The newt did nothing wrong, but did not stand a chance. I lack the emotional tools to really deal with such tragic outcomes for these sweet creatures. When going out in the rain, I hope to find a newt or two ambling about—my record is 12 at one time; six on my driveway and six on the (much longer) street. But I’d rather find no newts than dead newts. And dead newts stay visible on the road for days, while the active ones might be on the road for only a few minutes, making the probability of spotting a dead one disproportionately larger, if present. So, if I come up empty on a sortie, I might be disappointed, but recognize that “no newts is good newts.” I would have seen if any had been run over.
You watching for cars? Photo by author.
Luckily my almost-vacant street suffers very little traffic, so a five-minute newt crossing is likely to be successful. If I see a crossing in progress, I often stand back to watch the “feller” (which my wife and I use in a gender-inclusive way for lots of critters) safely across—ready to prevent a car encounter, as rare as it might be. If I can’t stick around, I might gently move them to their destination side, and hope I didn’t unwittingly thwart their plans.
Newts are highly poisonous, so I refrain from licking or kissing them. I also make sure to wash my hands (often in a puddle, as they tend to be out when water abounds) before touching food or my face. When picking them up by the base of their tail, they adorably splay their legs out and curve their spine into an arch, belly jutting out (the Unken reflex). Unless it’s a very short hop of a move, I quickly place them onto the palm of my hand, allowing them to relax out of this stressed pose. They mostly sit still, but sometimes begin to walk on my hand. Once at the road edge, I patiently wait for them to walk off under their own power, in their unhurried way.
Newt Walk
Watching a newt walk is itself a delight. They move one foot at a time in the order: rear left; front left; rear right; front right; repeat. They’ll often make about 8 or 10 repetitions and then pause for a break, thus staying on the move only about half the time. Usually they freeze when a large human comes near—making photography easy—but not always. Some keep their relaxed pace, while others appear to move more rapidly than normal away from possible danger. It takes all kinds.
Video, by author, of a newt’s gait (with fluff comically stuck to rear foot). No “low-five” in this sequence, but you can see how it might easily happen sometimes.
What we get the biggest kick out of is their occasional “low-five” trick, or technically, “low-four.” Sometimes their front foot extends backwards during the course of their walk, so that they rest on their “knuckles,” exposing the orange palm with digits pointing backwards. The rear foot sometimes then moves forward to land on the front, as if “giving themself five” in slow motion, immediately followed by the front paw smoothly slipping out from under the rear to begin its forward swing. Very suave.
It is also fascinating to watch them navigate obstacles in the course of moving through the normal tumble of plants, leaves, and twigs on the forest floor. As someone who picks out cross-country routes in the backcountry—sometimes coming to a sketchy impasse that forces a plan B re-route—I admire how their calm persistence usually has them working out a way to keep progressing, come what may. Relentless problem-solvers—never grumbling or giving up. Isn’t that how life seems to go for most beings?
Driveway Complications
Alex Leff gave me grief in his Human Nature Odyssey episode for being among the cursed humans using leaf blowers. I hang my head in shame. I never thought I would be one to blow leaves (what’s wrong with a rake, in those rare instances when it’s actually important to move leaves?). I explained that I only blow leaves (using a quiet, electric unit on low speed) because newts cross my driveway. But that’s really the wrong framing. My driveway crosses newt habitat. See the difference?
I guess the correct response to the age-old puzzle of “why did the chicken cross the road?” is “what on Earth is a road doing there?” I even have a related post!
In any case, leaf litter makes it hard to see newts from the driver’s seat. I’ll often provide “newt pilot” services for my wife or friends, walking slowly ahead of the car with eagle eyes scanning the jumble. But when I need to clear the path without harming possible newts hidden among the leaves, a gentle blow is indicated.
I’m clearly in the wrong—ecologically-speaking—by having a driveway and then actually driving on it! To make matters worse, I double down and get a god-damned leaf blower to support the original sin. Who knows how much harm is embodied in the materials, manufacture, energy, and eventual disposal of the vile thing? It’s yet another instance of how I’m still stuck in modernity: propagating a number of its maladaptive ways as a net menace to the community of life, even when making a tiny gesture in support of life. I’ll never get it right, as much as it grieves me. Many such harmful habits will likely be washed away only via the unhurried process of generational replacement under changing circumstances.
What Newts Teach Me
Some Indigenous folks refer to our older brothers and sisters (plants and animals) who—by dint of a long and successful tenure on Earth—can teach us much about how to live in this world. I think this is powerful wisdom. It meshes with my brain disdain. Any mode of living we invent out of our dangerously-versatile meat-brains will tend to lack deeply-interconnected ecological context and has a high chance of long-term failure due to its ecologically-unmoored ignorance. By watching and learning from other life, we put ourselves on more solid footing. Other species have been around a long time, successfully integrating into reciprocal relationships with the rest of the community of life, and are not laying waste to the planet while chasing hare-brained schemes of skyscrapers, crypto, and Mars.
Another feller! Photo by author (same newt as in foreground of picture with two newts).
I have learned valuable lessons from bees, wasps, snakes, birds, and newts. Newts present a calm demeanor that I admire. Part of this impression owes to their slow-poke pace, which itself must be connected to the security of being poisonous to all but garter snakes (an evolutionary arms race). On occasion I have seen some newts react to my presence in something that looks to me like panic, but usually they are extremely chill and steady. I sometimes react to situations the way I think a newt would.
Newts can live for over a decade, which means these geniuses have a number of hard problems figured out. Most impressive to me is their ability to survive hard freezes that might last a week or more. They know when and how to protect themselves, presumably by burrowing deep enough and patiently waiting it out. But this mild December they are still out and about, although in fewer numbers than a few months back. They are not on a rigid schedule, but adapt to variable conditions. That’s a type of wisdom.
Reaching reproductive maturity around age 4–5, newts spend years away from their birth pond exploring viable habitats. While they don’t move particularly fast, even just two hours of walking per day adds to over 100 meters, so that across years the range can conceivably be pretty large. I marvel at their adventurousness. Unlike me, they do not retreat to the same home night after night, but allow providence to provide. I consider the newt when I’m backpacking. I don’t need a plan ironed out in advance, but can adapt to the place I find myself at day’s end—with at least a little care.
Imagine if I were far more ecologically literate. If the newt and bee and wasp and snake can teach me so much, what would it be like if I were more attuned to a greater diversity of life? By emulating proven ways of living, I would be far less likely to exceed sustainable limits of ecology. The community of life is far older, smarter, and wiser than I.
[Note: The Oregon Zoo put out this fun, 1-minute video about newts. The credits label it as a Newtflix original. That’s what I’m talkin‘ about!]
