\u201cWe\u2019re standing at one of the places I most love in this world,\u201d Bruce Means tells the camera. \u201cThere\u2019s a big surprise right behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Means stands in an open field, a row of oak trees a short distance away. When we get to the tree line, we look down. Up here, all we see are the tops of trees and a slope that descends into shadows. At the bottoms of those trees, however, lies the promise of rare plants and animals, a few of which aren\u2019t found anywhere but the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines region. This is a steephead ravine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re here in search of the Apalachicola dusky salamander. It\u2019s a critter Dr. Means discovered as a graduate student at Florida State University in the 1960s and 70s. He was researching the southern dusky salamander<\/a>, and exploring Florida wetlands to get a sense of all the places they\u2019d be found. That search led him down steephead ravines, which had been largely ignored by biologists to that point. The dusky salamanders he found there were, at the time, classified as southern duskies.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Looking](\"https:\/\/blog.wfsu.org\/blog-coastal-health\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/slope-down-small.jpg\")
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