A Mystery, a Parapet, and an Impostor

I had a great time roving at Tohono Chul Park yesterday with my buddy Sue. As we walked the trails, Sue noticed something very odd: shredded leaves and twigs lay beneath many creosote bushes. What made this particularly strange is that not many creatures eat creosote, which contains a number of potent  and presumably bad-tasting chemicals.

MYSTERY: who is attacking the creosote?

We continued our walk, and at the top of a hill we saw this:

It was a round-tailed ground squirrel, dismantling a creosote branch. We said in unison: “Mystery solved!” We assume that he or she was using the little twigs and leaves to line a nest.

A little farther on, in a different part of the Park, we saw this beautiful example of a wolf-spider parapet.

Wolf-spider hole with parapet

A wolf spider creates a hole in the ground, usually alongside a trail, and builds a very nicely-constructed parapet all the way around the hole. I have heard different stories about why they do this; some say it is to give them a better vantage of approaching prey, but I have NEVER seen a wolf spider on a parapet.

Finally, in the front of the Park, we saw something I’ve never seen there before: a hummingbird moth (white-lined sphinx moth) busily sipping nectar from a field of penstemons. The below photo is courtesy of Sheri Williamson, of the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory (http://www.sabo.org/):

Here’s a video illustrating why these insects are sometimes mistaken for hummingbirds:

Hummingbird Moth (White-lined Sphinx Moth) and penstemons at Tohono Chul Park

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