... that Rattlesnake James, the last man to be hanged in California, was convicted of drowning his wife after a failed first attempt to kill her with rattlesnake venom?
... that the San Francisco garter snake (pictured) is an endangered species capable of digesting toxic newts but is not found in San Francisco?
... that Chuck Muncie was a star running back for The University of California, Berkeley during the 1970s, where he broke six school rushing records that stand to this day?
... that prehistoric inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay Area fished the bat ray in large numbers, while more recently it is mostly taken by oyster growers who mistakenly believe it feeds on their oysters?
... that the endangered subspecies California Clapper Rail (pictured), a chicken-sized bird that rarely flies, has chicks that can swim when they are just two hours old?
...that before Robert Louis Stevenson became a successful novelist with Treasure Island in 1883, he was a struggling author of travel narratives who published An Inland Voyage, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes and Silverado Squatters?

January - May 2006