by Rich Leighton | Jun 28, 2018 | American Southwest, Interesting Nature Facts, Mammals, Natural History, Nature & Wildlife
To avoid overheating, desert cottontails have higher activity periods at night, light-colored fur to minimize absorption of solar heat, and large ears, with blood vessels just below the skin level, that can radiate body heat to the air. When temperatures climb above...
by Rich Leighton | Jun 8, 2018 | American Southwest, Asparagaceae, Interesting Nature Facts, Natural History, Nature & Wildlife, Wildflowers
One reason it is believed that this iconic yucca is losing habitat, and declining in numbers is in the fossil record of the recent extinction (in geological years) of the Shasta ground sloth, one of the giant sloths that went the way of the mammoths and other American...
by Rich Leighton | May 4, 2018 | American Southwest, Interesting Nature Facts, Landscape, Natural History, Texas
Big Bend National Park is located at the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert. The Chihuahuan desert is the wettest of the four North American deserts, though it rarely receives more than 10 inches of rainfall. The rainy season in the desert is usually from mid-July...
by Rich Leighton | Dec 7, 2017 | American Southwest, Arizona, Birds, NANP, Natural History, Nature & Wildlife, Nature Photography
This male black-tailed gnatcatcher and his mate weren’t very happy when I peered out of my tent in the bright Sonoran Desert morning in the Ajo Mountains of Southern Arizona’s Pima County. I was scolded almost the entire time as I packed up my camera...
by Rich Leighton | Jun 14, 2017 | American Southwest, Arizona, NANP, Nature & Wildlife, Nature Photography, Wildflowers
Southern Arizona’s Sonoran Desert is famed for its sudden explosion of colorful wildflowers that follows the first springtime rains. From a distance, I saw bright splashes of pink from across the arid hills, and as I got closer, I found this Parry’s...
by Rich Leighton | Mar 21, 2017 | American Southwest, NANP, Natural History, Nature & Wildlife, Nature Photography, Photography, Travel, Utah, Wildflowers
As is often the case in wildflowers, telling one species from another can be exceedingly difficult. Especially when there are naturally occurring hybrids, same species with wildly variable physical attributes and just geographically separated populations of the same...
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