You’ve in all probability beheld a shiny yellow banana slug on a hike within the Santa Cruz Mountains or even perhaps in your personal yard. However now, the gorgeous banana slug is formally the California state slug.
In a collection of payments signed into legislation on Sept. 27, the banana slug, Dungeness crab and black abalone be part of a plethora of different wildlife in representing California. This recognition brings consideration to those creatures’ roles within the ecosystem and within the lives of the individuals in Santa Cruz and throughout the state. “It’s a really good way to focus on things that are unique and beautiful for California,” says Assemblymember Gail Pellerin for the twenty eighth Meeting District, who proposed the banana slug invoice.
The banana slug additionally has a particular place because the mascot of UC Santa Cruz. The popularity of the banana slug on the state degree was “an affirmation of one of the things that makes UC Santa Cruz a distinctive university,” says Chancellor Cynthia Larive. The banana slugs are surrounded by their namesake creatures that reside among the many bountiful redwoods on campus. Along with research of banana slugs by their colleagues on the primary campus, researchers on the college’s Heart for Coastal Local weather Resilience research quite a lot of marine life, together with the Dungeness crab and endangered black abalone.
All three of those creatures have necessary roles of their ecosystems and the lives of the individuals round them. Banana slugs have a symbiotic relationship with the state tree, the California redwood, in addition to the necessary job of changing forest detritus into wholesome soil. The Dungeness crab fishing season impacts the livelihoods of these working at fisheries all alongside the Central Coast. And black abalones hold kelp populations in verify, although their dwindling numbers landed them a spot on the endangered species checklist. So whilst you shouldn’t mess with a black abalone for those who see one, subsequent time you sweep previous a shiny banana slug, make sure you boast about it.
A banana slug strikes on fallen redwood leaves and sticks within the Cascade Creek property close to Pescadero in 2019. (Ray Chavez/Bay Space Information Group)
Initially Printed: October 13, 2024 at 12:13 p.m.
