Leaving Tucson

Tomorrow morning we leave Tucson, and will head east towards Texas. The Tucson area has so much to see and do that we reluctantly must leave some interesting things for another trip. Plus, the temperature in the last few days has reached, or almost reached, 100 degrees -- yes, it is a dry heat, but it has still been HOT.

In the last few days --

• We met our friends Ruth and Tom who live here in Tucson for a fun evening -- a tram ride through the Sabino Canyon and a wonderful dinner at their house. Thanks, Ruth and Tom -- it was great seeing you!

• We took a trip to the top of Mount Lemmon:

And along the way we saw hummingbirds and Saguaros in bloom:

• And we have discovered how lovely the evenings are here -- sitting outside, watching the sun go down behind the desert cacti and then watching the stars come out. That's also when groups of quail run for cover (they seem reluctant to fly for some reason), the temperatures plummet from the extreme heat of the day to something cool and pleasant, and the coyotes begin to yip and howl. It's become our favorite part of the day.

Another Crested Saguaro

After my previous posts about crested saguaros (here and here), I've had a few people ask why they grow the fan. It's an easy answer to a tough question -- no one really knows.

Botanists do know that the growing point of the cristate, or crested saguaro becomes multiple points which results in the fan-shaped top. Possible reasons include lightning strikes, freeze damage, or mutation. It is a rare condition - of the 1.6 million saguaros in Saguaro National Park, only 25 cresteds have been found.

The crested saguaro in this photo was inside the Desert Museum, a part museum, part zoo, part aviary (including a hummingbird aviary), and part botanical garden here in Tucson. Here are some more pictures from the museum:

   

What's On The Lunch Menu

Location: Tucson, AZ

As I was walking along in the desert the other day, a movement on a small cactus branch caught my eye. It turned out to be this little moth, who was caught on the cactus' needles, fluttering its wings in a useless attempt to free itself. If I saw it, I imagine other creatures did, too, and the moth probably became somebody's easy lunch.

While strolling through a wonderful outdoor museum here in Tucson called the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, I came upon this Tarantula Hawk (Pepsis sp.), a very large wasp that -- and please stop reading NOW if the realism of nature's cruelty bothers you -- paralyzes a fully grown tarantula and drags it back to its nest so its larvae can dine on the still-living tarantula, avoiding the spider's major organs for as long as possible to keep the meat fresh. Ah, Mother Nature!

The stalking of a tarantula by a Tarantula Hawk can be seen on this video. A video of a Tarantula Hawk dragging an already-paralyzed tarantula can be seen here. This video will give you a sense of scale -- this is one of the largest insect you will ever see. And if you do see one, don't touch it -- the Tarantula Hawks' sting is on the top of the insect-sting pain scale. Oddly, however, it is New Mexico's State Insect!

More Crested Saguaros

Location: Tucson, Arizona

Saguaro National Park is actually in two separate districts, one on the west of Tucson, and the other on the east. As you would expect, the entire area has a lot of saguaros, but visiting the park itself had a special perk -- the rangers were a wonderful resource for pointing us towards the rare crested saguaros in the area, of which there are four.

This was my favorite -- it is in the eastern part of the park, about a mile down a desert hiking trail. This was the only one of the four to also have arms:

Here are the others -- the first one was also within the park boundary, but the last two were on private land (but easily seen from the road):