| The Sonora Desert covers a significant part of southern Arizona
and also extends into Mexico. The museum's 100 acres (www.desertmuseum.org)
are a typical piece of Sonora desert
landscape inhabited only by typical desert flora and fauna. The only way to tell you
are in a museum is that many of the plants are labelled. It is therefore a good
way for us to find out the names of many of the plants we had been driving
past. |  |
 | .Bear grass is
quite an attractive plant with the whispy white bits curling away from the
stems. I'm sure the ancient tribes must have found some uses for it, it is
so common. |
| This one looks like a fern, but is in fact a member of a palm
family and is called palm of the Virgin. |  |
 | A typical agave,
which has many uses - some parts are edible, the leaves contain long fibres
used for weaving and making cord, and it is used to make tequila and mescal.
This photo shows a new leaf in the centre, still sealed into a cylinder but
showing the marks where it will split open. |
| Bats are quite common in desert areas, feeding on the insects at
night and roosting during the heat of the day, though most seem to migrate
further south for the winter. Here 2 bat boxes have been partly hidden among
the organ pipe cactus, which are about 15ft tall. |  |
 | .Another agave,
called the century plant because it only flowers once, when mature, before
it dies (although this can happen anywhere between about 7 to 55 years).
Once the flower spike appears, it grows rapidly - the measuring pole in
front shows that it had grown 10 inches in the 2 days before we saw it. |
| A third agave, this one is called Queen Victoria's agave. I liked
it because it forms such a perfect globe - a very architectural plant. |  |
 | .Back to cactus.
These are baby Baja fire barrel cacti, no doubt they will be planted out in
the grounds when they are bigger. They look beautiful with the red fish hook
spines, but are as vicious as any other cactus. |
| This is the dead flower spike of a century plant, but the
interest here is the series of holes drilled by carpenter bees who create
cell-like structures inside the stem. |  |
 | Even in December
there are plants still blooming in the desert, so there is still food for
various insects, including this butterfly... |
| ...and this beetle. Red usually means the insect is toxic, so we
didn't get too close, but the downside is that it makes it stand out,
especially against these unusual flowers. |  |
 | This small green
scorpion (about 2 inches long)would be very hard to spot out in the wild,
and is also poisonous, so it is displayed in a glass case. |
| Part of the museum is given over to the geology of the area. This
is part of a display of minerals and gem stones all of which were found in
Arizona or just across the border in Mexico, which is geologically the same
formation. |  |
 | .This is a larger
sample, I think of azurite. The display lighting certainly made it gleam. |
| They have a microscope set up with several samples of stones.
This one may be turquoise, which is quite commonly found in the area. It
was, and still is, highly prized by the native tribes for decorative
purposes. |  |
 | There are many
limestone formations in the Sonoran desert, and thus some wonderful
decorated cave systems. The museum doesn't have any on its land so it has
created a fairly realistic decorated cave of its own, complete with
stalagmites, stalactites and draperies. |
| A desert museum wouldn't be complete without some of the local
snakes. There are 2 snakes curled up here together, and the rattle can be
clearly seen at the end of the top ridge-nosed rattlesnake's tail. |  |
 | I would have
missed this one in the wild. It is called the brown vine snake, and with its
very narrow head and long thin body it looks very like the twigs over which
it is draped. |
The Isla San Estaben chuckwalla is a type of iguana. What a name
to conjure with! He looked quite majestic reclining on his rock...
|  |
 | ... whereas the
Mexican bearded lizard was just hanging out, unfortunately not with any
friends that we could see. |
| There are creeks and small oases in the desert, usually in the
foothills where there is some shade and the runoff from the little rain
there is or the snowmelt, so there are some amphibians too, like this
bullfrog... |  |
 | ... this small
brown frog whose name I can't remember... |
| ... and these Arizona toads. |  |
 | There are even
fish. This one is called a flannelmouth sucker, and it lives in the pond
with the beaver. |
|