Today's journey took me to the main vernal pool at the Babcock Ridge preserve. It's a frequent destination, and after the recent heavy rains that we had—we're still in moderate drought, but the blessed moisture has eased the worrisome situation somewhat—I suspected that the vernal had refilled a bit. During a wet spell in October, it had filled for the first time in the autumn, and when I surveyed the pool, it was replete with Marbled Salamander larvae. But then the drought returned, the vernal dried, and all that amphibian life departed. It was terribly sad and I could only hope that there were still eggs in the upper regions of the pool that might hatch during a second go-round of rain. Alas, I found no evidence of young salamanders when I scanned the pool's edges—most of it was iced over—and about the only sign of an inhabitant was this isopod, a crustacean my sixth-grade students call a roly-poly, on account of the classic defense mechanism of the group: the ability to roll into a ball. There are both terrestrial and aquatic isopods, and my guess is that the unfortunate creature I found was a denizen of the woods that got too close to the water and drowned... not a great way to end the year.