Monstrous!

I'm going to be out of the country for a short while without access to my blog, I expect. So this is an opportunity to publish a few short blogs that were planned but not executed before. For example, when I found those big Bot Flies in Sabino Canyon they exited me and a very select few of my entomologist friends to the point, that a much more popular monster was left by the wayside. Literally: just watch him walking along.

Our Gila Monsters were unusually visible this year, at least in Sabino Canyon. For several weeks the Group of the Friends of Sabino Canyon met on or two on each of their Wednesday hikes. No idea whether it was the same individual that took a liking to the group? I think the monsters are rather oblivious of people. Mostly they want food at this time. After all, they spend most of the year under ground, hiding from drought and food shortage between the rainy seasons.
When they are out, they gobble up whole clutches of quail eggs,  whole litters of rat pinkies...I once surprised one that was chewing down a whole rather grown-up pack rat. This venomous lizard  (the only  in the US) has to chew with their formidable jaws to release venom along a grove in their teeth.

On the lower jaw of my friend here you can see the big, bulging glands. Although I didn't get my nose too close to him, after all, Gila Monsters are said to suddenly lunge, bite, and then hold on for good, I noticed a peculiar chemical smell -  ok, all smells are chemical, but his perfume seemed nearly inorganic: a little like chlorine in a pool...   A pheromone? It is mating season.

 The smell of his poisonous droolings? But he wasn't drooling. He was only testing the air with his forked purple tongue. He was certainly not interested in me or my hiking boot standing between him and whatever he had to do before going into hiding once more.

Herping on the side, and some mammalian encounters

Last weekend, Robyn Waayers from Julian, CA, visited to enjoy the late monsoon activity and the bugs the monsoon brings out in Arizona. We picked up Eric Eaton, and made arrangements to meet some other naturalist friends for black lighting session in different canyons of the Catalinas and the Santa Ritas. Despite many blind spots for even the smartest cell phones in these mountain ranges all connections were eventually established.

In Peppersauce Canyon in the Santa Catalinas Bruce Taubert and I cornered a beautiful Western Lyre Snake Trimorphodon biscutatus. It had vertical pupils and slightly triangular shaped head. With a vibrating tail and a hiss that sounded very much like a rattle the snake did somewhat of a rattler imitation. It's not a total bluff: its grooved hind teeth are used to envenomate prey that in addition is subdued by the coils of the muscular body of the snake. 

In Box Canyon, Santa Rita Mountains, the next vertebrate, Equus africanus asinus,  took the initiative and investigated us: he marched around the car, rubbing his behind against bumpers and mirrors and shoving his head into every open window. My straw hat was mistaken for a treat and I had to pry it from the burro's teeth.

Photo by Robyn Waayers

All our trips take much longer than expected, so we were hurrying west through Box Canyon to meet with Nancy from Wisconsin in Florida Canyon. But the best intentions .... At dusk, Robyn spotted a Gila Monster crossing the road. It was Eric's first, finally just before he is leaving Arizona. Herpetologists assume that the monsters are not really rare, but their life style usually hides them even from avid naturalists. They spend most of the year under ground, probably not even feeding much.

The best times to see them is in June, when clutches of quail eggs provide enough provision to fatten up the Gila's tail, which seems to be his main energy storage. A second wave of observation reports usually coincides with the monsoon in August when female Gila Monsters lay their clutches of up to 12 eggs (but only every other year).

Our monster was obviously annoyed and hissed at us from his gaping black mouth. Gila Monsters are venomous, but they are hardly fast enough to grab a human and chew on him to transfer the venom that is secreted by glands in the lower jaw and released along grooves in the teeth.

Later at Florida Canyon we found the biggest and heaviest Sonoran Desert Toad that I've ever seen. I need both hands to lift the heavy guy out of the brush around a light where he was harvesting an abundance of bugs, mostly Oxygrylius ruginasus. I hope that Robyn has a picture of that guy. My hands were full.

Robyn's photo arrived! And no, the toads are not poisonous on contact, but I wouldn't lick them!