Beetlemania

The Iron Cross Blister Beetle (Tegrodera aloga) is a handsome beast, emerging in late spring in Sonoran Desert wherever there are soft sandy soils that support healthy colonies of ground-dwelling digger bees (Centris pallida). Yesterday evening we found a newly emerged swarm of beetles along the Central Arizona Project canal road north of Deem Hills Recreation Area. Thousands of beetles were feeding on fresh foliage of wheelscale saltbush (Atriplex elegans) at the edge of the road.

According to Carl Olson's guide to "50 Common Insects of the Southwest," these beetles have a complicated life cycle that depends on the bees and a healthy crop of palo verde flowers. Here is how Olson describes the scene:

"After mating, females seek palo verde trees in bud stage, lay eggs at the base of the buds, and then die. The eggs and buds develop together, eggs hatching when the flower opens. Larvae wait in flowers for native bees to arrive, hitch a ride back to the nest, where they stay, feeding on the juvenile bee and its provisions. They pupate in the nest and wait for next spring to emerge as adults."

This is just one more example of how everything is connected to everything else somehow.

Mingled in this little web of life, we also found a few Red-eared Blister Beetles wrestling with the Iron Cross Beetles. It was tough to tell if they were trying to mate with them, or having some kind of aggressive issue with their cousins. Red-ears have their own swarms earlier in the spring when brittle bush is in full bloom, so these few seemed to have missed the high season for mating with their own.  I suspect that this perennial urge is what got this one to pursue and mount a beetle of a different species, but probably with no success, since beetle mating paraphernalia, as with most insects, is highly specialized.

Spider Home

The leafy retreat of a female desert shrub spider (Diguetia canities) resembles a cocoon strung up by strands of web. Where these small spiders are abundant, you'll find their homes on nearly every shrub, especially bursage (Ambrosia spp.) and saltbush (Atriplex spp.). I found this one at Spur Cross Conservation Area attached to bursage, hanging over a  desert anemone (Anemone tuberosa). Perhaps the pollinators attracted to the anemone were her prey. Very clever, those spiders!

Yield to Brittlebush

If suburban sprawl has you worried that central Arizona may one day be completely overtaken by pavement, just remember that the life contained in Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa) seeds is far mightier than the Arizona Department of Transportation.  Able to sink roots into any gap in sidewalk, oblivious to vehicle exhaust and blossoming in the driest locations, Brittlebush will surely pioneer the restoration of this desert after the last drop of oil has been burned.

I joined this specimen thriving on an island in the middle of a round-about at Happy Valley Road and the I-17 yesterday, to document its life amidst the chaos of evening commuter traffic. I've been watching this plant grow for months, relieved each time I passed by that some ADOT crew hadn't doused it with herbicide or snatched it up by the roots. Now she is on her way to producing seed, and if all goes well, the island will be well populated by her progeny next spring!

Job Creation

We can all thank urban and suburban dog owners for the role they and their pets play in job creation. Over the past decade or so, a small industry dedicated to the design, manufacture, distribution, marketing, installation and maintenance of pet waste stations has begun to flourish. In Paris, France, there is a small army of poop police dedicated to arresting dog owners who fail to clean up "canine ejections."  In many cities around the U.S., a high tech solution uses DNA records of poop to track down offenders. Perhaps encouraging people to adopt more dogs is one solution to America's "job creation" problem! 

Feral Flowers

African daisies (Dimorphotheca sinuata) brighten up suburban landscapes around Phoenix, thriving in arid landscapes that have soils and climate similar to deserts in Namibia, from where they were imported. Also known as Cape Marigold, this species is often marketed in "wildflower" seed mixes.

Fortress

The most ubiquitous of North American owls is the Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus), which claims year round residency throughout the continent. In the Sonoran desert, they will occupy old hawk nests among the limbs of saguaros, but do not build their own. This mama owl has returned for a second year to her cactus fortress along a trail in the Sonoran Preserve in north central Phoenix. 

Interstate highway 17 hums just two miles west of this nest. She is able to amply provide for her brood with squirrels and rabbits that are abundant in both the surrounding desert preserve and sprawling neighborhoods below.

Survivor

This robust specimen of Sahara mustard (Brassica tournefortii) is the lone survivor at the edge of a fallow cotton field in the McMullen Valley near Wenden, Arizona.