Nature Notes

Agave, and the related succulents lechuguilla and sotol, are the ancient touchstones of human life in our region. The continent's oldest known “earth oven” was found south of Alpine – proof that Indigenous people have been baking agave here – and rendering its otherwise toxic bulbs edible and sweet – since the Ice Age. Agave is sacred in Native traditions – in Chihuahua, the Tarahumara call it “the first plant God created.” And its sacred significance endures in our region – the Mescalero Apache hold annual “mescal roasts” as part of coming-of-age rituals for young women.

Archeologist Myles Miller, with a dedicated crew, recently completed an extensive study of “p... Hosted by for KRTS

Big Bend National Park is a land of superlatives, and that extends to an area of primal interest: the Age of Reptiles.

Big Bend's unparalleled fossil record has enthralled paleontologists and dinosaur enthusiasts for a century. Discoveries here include the largest flying creature ever known – quetzalcoatlus, a reptile with a 35-foot wingspan. Big Bend outcrops hold the bones of alamosaurus – a 70-ton “titanosaur” that was the largest dinosaur to live in North America. In that lost world, giants clashed where mountain lions and rattlesnakes prowl today. Duck-billed hadrosaurs – “the cows of the Cretaceous” – grazed in herds or family groups. They were up to 30 feet long, b... Hosted by for KRTS

For many Big Bend National Park regulars, it's an essential stop after a day of desert adventuring. To ease into the soothing waters of the park's hot springs, near Rio Grande Village, is pure animal satisfaction. Indeed, these springs were one of the region's first tourist attractions.

But the park's thermal springs – there are many – conceal a wonder most blissful soakers never guess at. The Big Bend gambusia is found only in a few warm pools in the park. The lovely, 2-inch fish has escaped brushes with extinction time and again. It's a small creature – with an epic story.

Dr. Sean Graham, of Sul Ross State University in Alpine, monitors the Big Bend gambusia.

“They hav... Hosted by for KRTS

A message to Nature Notes listeners: if the movie Alien, the 1979 sci-fi classic, gave you nightmares, this isn't the episode for you.

“There are,” as Shakespeare reminds us, “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” and reality bears that out: the natural world doesn't lack for the extreme, the bizarre.

When it comes to the gross-out department, few phenomena can compete with parasitoid wasps. Ranging from a fraction of a millimeter to 2 inches in length, these insects provide for their young in a lurid way: by laying their eggs on, or within, the bodies of other creatures.

Dr. David Althoff, of Syracuse University, studies parasitoid wasps.... Hosted by for KRTS

photograph courtesy Sean Graham. Harmless to humans, the Trans-Pecos black-hooded snake has a venom that's effective on its favored prey: centipedes. The snake was only known from a few West Texas counties, until Graham's team made the first record in Mexico.

The Chihuahuan Desert is the largest desert in North America, and, in terms of the richness of species, it may be the most biologically diverse desert in the world. That diversity encompasses the range of fauna and flora. There are mammals – and a surprising number of fish – found nowhere else on Earth. Almost a quarter of the world's cactus species are found here.

Yet it's no surprise that this sun-blasted place is a partic... Hosted by for KRTS

In December 2019, a Chihuahuan Desert place became the country's newest national park, White Sands, in New Mexico, preserves a vast, shining dunefield. But like every national park, its wonders are manifold.

In recent years, researchers here have found thousands of fossilized Ice Age footprints – of vanished animals, and of humans. It's an unparalleled record, and it speaks as powerfully as any artifact could to the life of the continent's earliest people.

“The story sort of begins with Bigfoot,” David Bustos, the park's chief of resources, said.

In 1932, a government trapper named Ellis Wright returned from an outing here with a Sasquatch story. He said he'd found footprint... Hosted by for KRTS

Tall 'Spanish daggers' stand in the Big Bend desert, their limbs extended in expressive gestures. Another variety - the Great Plains or "soapweed' species - dots the Llano Estacado.

Yucca plants are found across much of the Americas. But they flourish in West Texas, and are among the most striking of plants in our plains and deserts.

They're also part of one of nature's truly remarkable pairs. Yuccas and yucca moths are entirely dependent on one another. In the weeks to come, the drama of that bond will play out in the West Texas night.

Charles Valentine Riley was the first to study it deeply, in the 1870s. He was awed.

“She works with a vigor that would indicate combined pl... Hosted by for KRTS

photograph courtesy of the University of New Mexico. Caves in the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas and New Mexico – including Burnet Cave, pictured above – preserved the bones of now-vanished Ice Age animals, and abundant artifacts of ancient human life.

The Guadalupe Mountains are seductive for their wooded canyons and high forests. But they're as notable for what's hidden beneath and within them as they are for their peaks.

Carlsbad Caverns is famous, but there are caves and rockshelters throughout the Guadalupes, and these spaces have a distinctive significance for scientists. They've yielded a bonanza in paleontology – the bones of Ice Age mammoths and sloths, short-faced bears,... Hosted by for KRTS

“If one is inclined to wonder at first how so many came to be in the loneliest land that ever came out of God's hands, one does not wonder so much after having lived there,” Mary Austin wrote in 1903, in The Land of Little Rain. She was among the first American writers to celebrate the beauty of the desert Southwest. Judging by visitation, appreciation for that beauty – “the pulse of a life laid bare to its sinews,” in Austin's words – is increasing. Desert places have become global attractions.

In the Chihuahuan Desert, that includes four national parks – Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains in Texas, Carlsbad Caverns and, now, White Sands in New Mexico. Located in the Tularos... Hosted by for KRTS

Their social dynamics are intricate, and their legacy on the planet dates back some 150 million years. Ants can go unnoticed – underfoot as they are – but they're a significant part of life on Earth. They comprise almost a quarter of the total biomass of animals on the planet. A study in Death Valley found that, in sheer weight, ants exceeded all the area's mammals combined, and the numbers could be comparable in arid parts of West Texas.

Often surrounded by gravel and bare ground, harvester ant nests are a common sight in the plains and deserts of West Texas. But much of what transpires in these colonies – particularly between the ants and “guests” of other species – rem... Hosted by for KRTS