Visible in the park’s southeastern corner, near the hot springs and Boquillas Canyon, the Boquillas Formation is a series of limestones and shales, in white, tan, yellow and brown. These rocks were laid down in shallow ocean waters across 10 million years, and they abound in fossils, which capture the emergence and extinction of countless creatures.

Chickadees are found across North America. Their “chickadee-dee-dee” call is an alarm – the more “dee-dee-dees,” the more serious the threat – and it’s only one element in their vocal repertoire.

Around the world, advocates are fighting to preserve dark skies, as a vital asset for humankind. But there’s also new research showing the importance of dark skies for nonhuman creatures.

In March, a hunter on the O2 Ranch south of Alpine found what appeared to be an ivory tusk in an arroyo bottom. Ranch Manager Will Juett contacted archeologists at Alpine’s Center for Big Bend Studies. They confirmed the find: this was a mammoth tusk.

Grasshopper mice are fierce, if diminutive, predators, that routinely dine on scorpions, centipedes and other venomous prey. And as they set out on their nightly hunts, they emit a long, piercing cry. It’s been called “a wolf’s howl in miniature.” Listening closely to these desert mice reveals the surprising world of “bioacoustics.”

The garden’s namesake was a passionate advocate for our region’s plants. Manning, who passed away September 8th, managed the Sul Ross greenhouse for 18 years, worked as a teacher and consultant and, with her partner Cindi Wimberly, founded Twin Sisters Natives. That business offered plants Manning had cultivated, with careful expertise, from seeds she’d collected.

Zone-tailed hawks are among the birds of prey that rely on riparian forests – woodlands along creeks and streams – as nesting sites in the Big Bend. Each summer, these hawks return from the tropics to raise young in the same creek-side cottonwoods.

In 1944, near the town of Plainview - 45 miles north of Lubbock - archeologists discovered two dozen examples of a previously unknown spearpoint – the Plainview style – among the bones of at least 100 Ice Age bison.

It’s the first discovery of a new plant genus in a national park in decades, and a landmark find. But the identification of Ovicula biradiata, the “wooly devil,” began with a simple walk in the park. The discovery is a reminder that while known for its vast landscapes, Big Bend National Park is also a place of hidden surprises.

Lubbock Lake is one of several important archeological sites on the West Texas plains that testify to the earliest Americans, the “Paleoindians.”