Gentle Giant of Wizard Island

Up at Crater Lake, the newts are different.

In its range throughout the lowlands, the highly toxic rough-skinned newt has one predator: the garter snake, adapted over time to withstand an amount of newt poison that can easily kill a human. But in alpine habitat at Crater Lake, it is too cold for garter snakes to survive. Without a need for such intense defense, the high country newts have no need to produce so much poison and as a result have become far less toxic.

Free from millenia of predation and with new physiological energy to spare, imagine what a newt might achieve. Certainly there is plenty of lore of centuries-old amphibians tucked away in remote caves. Perhaps during their spawning season in the deep blue protected waters of Crater Lake, some newts dream of becoming dragons.

Painting size 12×12″, total framed dimensions 14×14″.