Scorpions are not a thing at our house.  We don’t see them frequently, and as previously posted, they’re more likely to be encountered outside as victims of the swimming pool than inside the house.  But last night E liberated one from the front bathroom, and temporarily incarcerated it in a pint glass.

In the morning, I wanted to watch it glow.  Here’s a picture of it viewed under a UV light, with the glass’s Duralex logo for scale.  It’s another “striper”: Vaejovis spinigera, a stripe-tailed scorpion, our most common species.

There are places in the Greater Phoenix famous for their scorpionicity.  So much so, that you can find maps of the frequency of scorpion stings on the internet, for the benefit of people new to the area who might want the info while searching for a house to buy. (We looked at a map of Superfund sites, but everyone has to prioritize their own worries).  Such a map is to the right: the darkest areas show the areas with the most stings reported, so it’s more likely to reflect factors such as human population density or likeliness of going to the hospital than actual scorpion presence.  Also, the map doesn’t indicate actual numbers or a unit of time, so there’s no knowing if the darkest red are so many stings a year, or so many stings a minute.  But, it provides a rough idea of who should invest in a hand-held black-light, and who’s most likely to subscribe to weekly pest control.

Oddly, the scorpion-rich areas are not all desert neighborhoods as you might expect: there’s a hot spot in Tempe with lawns and sprinklers and rose-bushes, and another in the central corridor of older Phoenix.  We’ve got friends who live there, and they see scorps way more often than we do, and have been stung.  As a kid in Phoenix, I remember being afraid of scorpions after hearing stories of people leaving wet washcloths on the bathroom floor, and finding several of them clinging to the underside of it when it was picked up next morning.  (Scorpions love getting under things and hanging there upside down.  Biologists call this “reverse geotaxis”: the habit of aligning yourself in reverse to the surface of the earth.)  Fortunately, in our area, for most people the sting of most scorpions is a painful inconvenience, and nothing more.  There are places in the world where there are much more potent scorps, and their sting is a medical matter and is even occasionally fatal.

After its photo-session, I released this striper in the back yard, under a Cenizo bush, where it clung to some foliage.  By the time the sun strikes the plant, it’ll be back in a hidey-hole until night falls again.

(Photo A.Shock; scorpion wrangling E.Shock)

The weather has cooled a bit, and even the succulents in the yard are perking up a little.  Here’s a shot of a luncheon-plate sized flower of a nocturnal, non-native Cereus aethiops columnar cactus, taken at dawn before it faded in the rays of the sun.

(Photo of Cereus aethiops blossom by A.Shock)

Although the days are still hot here in the Phoenix area, there are signs that summer is sliding into fall: migrating Red-tailed hawks soaring over the park this morning, and over Papago Buttes a couple of accipiters (probably Cooper’s hawks) swirling through a cloud of White-throated swifts, hoping for a quick fistful of breakfast on the wing; also, cooler nights and a less intense light from the sun not rising quite so high in the sky.  It’s about time for our wintering ducks to start arriving at desert lakes, both genuine and artificial, in both wild and suburban settings.  The Phoenix Zoo is a great place to see wintering waterfowl: here’s a picture of a Ring-necked duck on the entrance pond.

Ring-necked ducks confuse people who have just met them: Looking at the obviously ringed bill pattern, they often ask: Why aren’t they called Ring-billed ducks?  This white ring around the end of the bill is visible at a distance, in nearly all light conditions.  The eponymous ring around the neck is much less frequently seen, but it shows in this un-enhanced photo: a deep chestnut almost iridescent maroon band between the chin and the breast of this natty adult bird.

(Photo: E.Shock)

After our latest monsoon event, the yard was freshly rinsed and all dampy.  Everything was making the most of the moist: the succulents were sucking up water, the trees were drinking and dripping, and the whole world was washed in that most deserty perfume of creosote.

Also, the Cactus Longhorn Beetle came out.  Here is its picture, on a “Bunnyears” prickly pear (Opuntia macrodasys).

From a horticultural point of view, the cactus longhorn beetle (Moneilema gigas) is a serious pest: its eggs hatch into larvae which bore into the tissue of cactus, especially Opuntia, and the adults are happy to munch on tender growing edges of cactus pads.  The boring larvae exude their waste as an unsightly tarry goo on the cactus outside their boreholes, and their tunneling can be fatal to susceptible individual plants; the damage gnawing adults do to pads can alter an even growth pattern in new leaves.  So, many desert gardening sites recommend the barbaric “Insta-stomp” approach to relating to this large beetle. (They’re flightless and are easily captured.)

E took pictures of this adult, possibly just eclosed after the monsoon rain, and we left it to trundle off, having admired its long “horns” with the white “elbows” on them.  Stomping just didn’t seem like a viable alternative — frankly, I don’t know if flip-flops are up to the task of exterminating such a robustly-crusted arthropod (note the mediaeval spines around its thorax). Anyway, there’s plenty of Bunny Ears to go around.

Bonus Monsoon cactus flowers

Most Sonoran desert plants bloom in spring after the winter rainy season, but there are many that take advantage of the Monsoon rains, and bloom in late summer and early fall.  This barrel cactus in our yard, a Ferocactus herrerae, is currently putting on an extravagant floral display.

(Both photos E. Shock)

…things are more colorful in the tropics.

Let’s unofficially extend International Vulture Awareness “Day” to “Weekend”, just so we can examine the glorious elegance that is the facial skin of the Lesser Yellow-Headed Vulture, a cousin of the widely distributed Turkey vulture that most of us Norte Americaños are familiar with.

You could argue that the King Vulture, also a New World vulture, is even more colorful, especially taking into account its snowy white-and-black plumage, but among the “Cathartes” vultures, the Lesser Yellow-headed takes the prize for chroma.  This colorfulness is limited to its face — in other ways, its plumage is so similar to its “cousin” the Turkey vulture that in flight, at a distance, the two are possible to confuse.

I’ve seen Lesser Yellow-headeds in Belize and Veracruz, and it’s always a thrill to feel that small jolt when you realize the bird gliding above the pasture that you were about to pass over as yet another Turkey vulture has that little extra something… the sun-colored facial skin gleaming in the tropical daylight.

(Photo by A.J. Haverkamp, from Wikimedia Commons: Especially, note the Pervious Nostril in this shot!)

Lesser yellow-headed vultures (Cathartes burrovianus) live in Central to South America, and are birds of tropical lowlands, seasonal wetlands and agricultural areas.  Like the majority of vultures around the world, they are carrion feeders. It’s widely reported that they have a mutually beneficial relationship with King Vultures: King Vultures, which lack the keen putrescine and cadaverene-sensing olfactory prowess of the Cathartes vultures, follow Yellow-headed vultures to locate fresh carcasses.  But the Yellow-headeds lack the mighty hide-ripping bill of the King.  So they wait at a carcass for the King vulture to show up, to “start” the meal.

(Photo: coastal agricultural wetlands of Veracruz, typical Yellow-headed vulture habitat.  A.Shock)

International Vulture Awareness day is Sept. 5

Vultures and condors are really useful in your niche or ecosystem.  What to do with that pesky roadkill, thawed winterkill, shot-winged quarry, victims of natural disaster, contagion, or warfare, or any other squishy, odiferous and past-its-prime meaty object?  Just leave it to vultures — it’s easy, quick, FREE, and All Natural.

Recommended by ornithologists, epidemiologists, jhatorists, and vultures worldwide!

(Not available in perpetually frosty environments)

For more about International Vulture Awareness Day, click here.

(Photo:Turkey vulture; A.Shock)

As kids growing up in coastal southern California, we loved to warn each other authoritatively “Shuffle your feet!”, having been scared by older cousins and uncles about the dangers of stingrays in the warm shallow waters of some of the bays we swam in.  Older cousins and uncles may like to terrify little girls for fun, but there really are stingrays in these waters.  They are mild-mannered and usually slow-moving in their search for amphipods and other small crustaceans, but would defend themselves instinctively if a little foot stomped down on their backs, as anyone would.

This ray was gliding slowly in and under the edge of the pickleweed mats in the summery shallows of Bolsa Chica Preserve in coastal Orange County California.  It’s a California or Round Stingray, Urobatis halleri, and is about the size of a small dinner plate, if dinner plates had tails. (Photo A. Shock)

For all the info about this species you ever needed and more, click here.

In an earlier post, I recalled an uncomfortable encounter with a bison on Catalina Island.  For the past few days, we were in Yellowstone (no internet anywhere in the Park!), and our interactions with large mammals were definitely calmer and thankfully more removed.  Here is one, placidly grazing by a park roadside.  He’s been head-butting vegetation in order to beautify himself for the bisonettes, and is admirable in his festoonage, which includes a small pine bough.  I’m unable to report if its piny freshness improved upon his bovine musk.

One of the things about Yellowstone is the range of scale of amazement in the park.  There is really really big amazing stuff, like bison, the Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Grand Geyser, and the size of the volcanic crater at the center of the park itself.  But there is also amazing tiny stuff everywhere, too.  Here are some branches that have fallen into hot water, and become festooned with minerals. There are even tinier things — so inconspicuous as to be hard to see unless you know to look for them — in the form of the crazy-hardy and diverse thermophilic organisms that live in the scalding chemical brews of the hot water in the park.

(Bison in the Hayden Valley; branches at Mammoth Hot Springs; Morning Glory Pool, Upper Geyser Basin.  All photos A.Shock)

It looks a lot like a toad, with a stumpy physique and warty skin, but it’s a Canyon Tree Frog (Hyla arenicolor).  How to tell it’s a frog? One way: no parotoid glands — instead you can see the round flat areas of its tympani (hearing structures) behind and slightly below the eye. Also, this frog has large adhesive pads on the ends of its toes to aid in climbing (after all it is a tree frog), which most toads don’t do.  Canyon tree frogs are variable in color and spottage (a technical term: feel free to pronounce it spot-AAHJ), but this individual is fairly pale and nearly spot-free. They inhabit rocky stream courses in Arizona and the Southwest with intermittent or permanent water, where they enjoy feeding upon small invertebrates. This one was photographed at Aravaipa Canyon. (Photo A.Shock, 2009)

Etymology

Hyla arenicolor: arenicolor is a Latin compound meaning sand-colored: to the Romans as well as to us, an arena is a sand-covered area.  The origin of the genus Hyla is a bit more complex, and much more picturesque.  To start, the greek work ὗλη — cognate with the more familiar Latin sylva, means woodland, and may come into play in the naming of a genus of tree frogs. But a more colorful tradition connects the genus name with Hylas, one of the original Argonauts who while searching for fresh water ashore was pulled into a woodland spring by a desirous water nymph.  Hylas’s companions — including Herakles and Jason — searched the island for him in vain, crying his name over and over: the story goes that the incessant cry of his name relates to the repetitive calling of tree frogs.

above: the story of the rape of Hylas, “Hylas and the Nymphs” by J.W. Waterhouse, 1896. If you’re lucky enough to be in London during the next couple of weeks, check out the exhibition: J.W.Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite, it’s on at the Royal Academy until 13 Sept 2009. (And, there’s a pleasing similarity between the color schemes of the Waterhouse painting and the tree frog photo at the top: the watery-brown background, ivory skin tones and heart-shaped green foliage.)