Satan's pancake flipper, AGAIN. I so love this harvestmen. When I found it the rest of the group was further down the stream bed. It was so cryptic that I knew I couldn't take my eyes off it or I might lose it, so I stared at it intently for a few minutes until the rest of the group arrived, at which point I exclaimed "Ortholasma! You must photograph this!" And then I realized I was getting super excited and pointing at a creature nigh indistinguishable from a tiny fleck of soil unless you have a hand lens or a macro setup.

This was the first of two I found. Habitat was quite a bit different than the moist, mixed tanoak / Doug fir / redwood mix at Gazos Creek, which was where I first encountered this beast. Instead they were crawling around a dry creek bed with moist soil, oak / bay canopy. I'm not sure how frequently this creek dries up in "normal" years (whatever that means these days), but the presence of snails (Trilobopsis and succinoids that may have been Catinella), burrowing mygalomorphs (Antrodiaetus riversi and and unidentified trapdoor spider), and riparian isopods (Ligidium gracile) suggest this area does retain moisture, if not surface water.