Saturday, January 24, 2015
We visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It is 98 acres of zoo, botanical garden, art gallery, natural history museum and aquarium:
https://www.desertmuseum.org/about/
These are some photos of our drive to the museum:
The following photos are from our visit to the museum. Along the trails are interpretative signs and stations with docents.
In Indio, California, we were in the Mojave and Colorado Desert. In Tucson, Arizona, we are in the Sonoran Desert.
The docent, in this photo, introduced us to a female barn owl:
Gopher Snake: Arizona's longest snake *adults reach 5 to 6 feet*
The docent at this station showed us a section of a saguaro skeleton and a "boot".
The saguaro responds to the bird damaging its tissue by secreting a resinous sap that, over time, hardens into a bark-like shell that prevents the cactus from losing fluid and also protects the nest hole by making it waterproof. The bird's nesting hole requires not only the bird making a hole but also the cactus lining the hole - it is not ready for use as a nest until a year after its creation. Many saguaros are home to multiple nests; if birds excavate adjoining hollows, a saguaro boot may be formed with more than one opening http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saguaro_boot
Then, we explored a cave:
Rocks and Minerals:
Mountain Lion
Roadrunner
Albino Gopher Snake
Sonoran Desert Toad
Prairie Dogs
I did not capture a clear photo of the heron, but I thought I would include this description as it provides insight in how the museum acquires some of its' animals.
White Winged Dove
There was so much interesting information to take in, another visit would be well worth it. Everything one could want to know about the desert in one location, Fantastic! ( I skipped the pictures of the tarantulas though )
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