Looking for Fish in the Desert

It always amazes me that fish can live in the desert. These little creatures that require water year round are playing an amazing gamble with their lives choosing to live in such a parched area. Haven't they studied the odds? Gambling isn't a safe way to live! 

It turns out that many desert fish species used to live in a lot of water, about 10,000 years ago when huge lakes covered many areas of the Desert Southwest. We live next to the Bonneville Basin, where a huge lake the size of today's Lake Michigan flooded many of the valley bottoms. Many different fish species lived in the lake, but as it dried up, they became restricted to small bodies of water. One such fish species is the least chub (Iotichthys phlegethontis), a tiny minnow-like fish that rarely gets more than two inches long.

I set off one warm morning to help some fish biologists locate these fish. We went to a huge marsh area that has many small springs providing green spots among the more mundane-colored vegetation.

Here is Brooke, ready to measure the depth of the spring as a standard habitat measurement. I want you to notice that the pole she is holding is seven feet tall. The spring is under the thick green vegetation by her feet.

Where's the pole? Look closely, Brooke is still holding it, she's just holding the top of it. The rest of the pole is in the spring, over six feet deep. One wrong step in this marsh and you're literally in over your head.

Take a few steps in another direction and you find the salt marsh stretching off to the distance, as dry as can be. During the spring, a nearby playa fills with water and shorebirds stop by to snack on invertebrates during the migration. 

The scattered pockets of water provide opportunities for diverse vegetation, including these cattails. At selected springs, we lower minnow traps into the water and leave them for three hours.

At the end of three hours we go and pull the traps. Some springs only have predaceous diving beetles and amphipods (also called scuds or freshwater shrimp). But sometimes we have luck and pull out a trap with fish in it. We determine the species and measure the fish before releasing them back into the spring.

Here are two of our catches, a speckled dace (Rhinichthys osculus) and a least chub. Seeing them makes me realize the amazing adaptations the native species have made to live out in the desert. So far their gamble is paying off.

A Community Barbecue

Every Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, the Volunteer Fire Department holds a barbecue to raise money. It's been held for decades and is a great place to catch up with folks you haven't seen for awhile. My husband and I are members of the Volunteer Fire Department and the barbecue is held at the cookhouse next to our house, so we had great views of the event from start to finish. 

The start actually begins several months in advance with the planning. Food is ordered, a cleanup day is scheduled the weekend before the barbecue, and tasks are divvied up. Finally the big weekend arrives. 

On Friday night the meat (tri-tip roasts) is taken out of the huge walk-in cooler, rinsed, and marinated with yummy barbecue sauce. At first only one person squirted a bottle of barbecue sauce.

That was going slow, so another person started squirting. His squirt looks more sporadic than the first. Neatness didn't count for this part, because we had several coolers to marinate, plus the more barbecue sauce, the better!

One volunteer reaches into the cold meat to make sure that it is all covered. Looks nice and messy, doesn't it!? The meat goes back into the walk-in cooler until the next day.

At mid-morning on Saturday, more preparations take place, like shucking the corn. Coming from the Midwest, this is one of my all-time favorite tasks. As I shuck the corn I just imagine biting into those firm, sweet kernels, releasing a wonderful squirt of corn juice. Mmmm.

Tables and chairs are set up, signs made, lemonade mixed, potatoes wrapped and baked, beans prepared, and much more. Desert Boy kept me occupied for a little while so I didn't get a chance to take photos of all the separate parts, but you get the idea. 

The serving line was set up in the cookhouse. Folks enter through one door and exit through another, making it an efficient process. The smells in the cookhouse are getting better and better as we approach the appointed hour.

At the back door of the cookhouse, the corn station is setup. Two huge pots are filled with water and a flame thrower is used to light the burners. Okay, it's probably not exactly a flame thrower, but it sure looked like one to me.

On the front porch of the cookhouse, this huge cauldron is set up. Can you see the smoke coming off the top? Why in the world do we have a witch's brew for a barbecue? This is the homemade root beer, and the dry ice is making the neat visual effect.

Over on the side the guys are grilling the roasts over a bed of charcoals. The barbecued meat flavor ensures that people are constantly circling around the grill to check out the progress.

Here's some of the circle. In the background of this photo you should see some mountains, but a huge rainstorm came in about half an hour before we were due to start. The wind started blowing, and we could see rain showers on the mountain. We tried to figure out what we would do if it started pouring rain or even hailing. We ended up deciding that the storm would blow through, and sure enough, it did. 

The scary weather did scare some people away, but we still had many come. Here's the line forming at the front of the cookhouse to get the delectable food. 

People whizzed through the serving line thanks to the attentive servers. Ready for the mouth-watering menu? Here it is: tri-tip roast (or hot dogs for the kids), baked potato, corn on the cob, beans, salad, roll, watermelon, cake, root beer, and lemonade. 

I was trying to help sell tickets, so I parked Desert Boy with one of the oldest inhabitants of the valley. He quickly tried to steal her watermelon. 

Some of the kids thought stirring the cauldron was really fun. The aroma of root beer filled the air.

After we had eaten as much as we could hold, it was time for the games. I guess I'm still a kid at heart because I volunteered to organize them. Here we are getting ready for the watermelon seed spitting contest. It's not so easy with seedless watermelons. (Thanks to K. Rountree for this and the next photo.)

 
The water balloon toss was a huge hit despite the little sprinkle of rain we had right before the dinner. In fact the kids clamored to do the water balloon toss again. So we did it again. And again, until we ran out of balloons.

Finally it was time to clean up. Leftover meat was bagged and sold, chairs and tables taken back to the school, garbage taken to the dumpster, and the floor mopped. It was a good, but tiring day. But we saved enough energy to head out to the dance and dance the night away.

Desert Destination: Four-wheel Driving

Every Monday we visit a desert destination.

Yesterday morning we cleaned, so we were ready for something different in the afternoon and decided to do a little sightseeing in some nearby hills. (Hills around here are just smaller mountains, generally only  a few thousand feet higher than the valley floor rather than over a mile higher than the valley floor.) We got into the truck and headed out.

The truck was a narrow fit through one section, but for the most part the road we chose was in good shape.

You can see the fields in the background, so we aren't too far from the ranch. We were feeling a little adventurous, but not too adventurous. After all, it was a hot afternoon and we didn't have much gumption.

Desert Boy loved all the jostling as we went over the rough road. I wasn't quite so fond of it, so I jumped out to take some photos. Having a camera close at hand is a good excuse for a lot of things, like getting out of bumpy vehicles and taking extra breaks when hiking. 

I told my husband I wanted to look at the vegetation, but as you can see in the photo, most of the vegetation is really brown now, after a rather dry summer. I was hoping if I looked around long enough I might find something interesting.

I did manage to find this cute cactus growing out of a little hole in the rock. It won't be able to get too much bigger.

A few white flowers were growing off this green mat of leaves on a rocky area. I still haven't figured out what they were, but the bright green leaves and long stems were distinctive. (Note: 9/29/08: This is Petrophytum caespitosum, in the Rosaceae family.)

I even found some pretty yellow flowers to help brighten up the landscape. 

These hills are really dry, with no streams or springs. This is some of the typical desert landscape, tall cliffs, scattered pinyon and juniper trees, and lots of sagebrush, Mormon tea, and shadscale. After driving awhile we stopped and took a nap. Desert Boy was the one who inspired us, he had already fallen asleep. 

After our nap and flower break it was time to get back in and see where else the road led to. We felt like rugged explorers. Except that we were in an air-conditioned truck with cushioned seats and plenty to eat and drink. And we had just taken a nap. It's tough being an explorer these days.

Desert Survivor Needs Your Help

I walked into the kitchen the other day to behold this troubling sight: Desert Boy had clambered up on the kitchen table, sat squarely on his tray, and was about to dump a box of cereal on the floor. Yeehaw, what a good time (if you're Desert Boy!).  As you can see, he doesn't pay any attention to me.

So I need your help with a caption for this photo. What do you suggest?

Beetles that Swim

Over time we've looked at how some animal species have adapted to live in the desert with little water and hot temperatures. Well, some wildlife have just chosen to live where there is water and cooler temperatures, despite being in the desert.

These spots are few and far between, but they do exist, like this spring out in the middle of a salt marsh. The surrounding soil is very salty, but the water temperature rarely rises above  15 degrees Celsius (about 60 degrees Fahrenheit). 

 
Here is one of the most common inhabitants, Dystiscus marginicollis, a predaceous diving beetle in the family Dytiscidae. As larvae, the long and skinny creatures are known as water tigers due to their predatory nature. 

As adults, they develop a hard exoskeleton and become oval shaped. They move through the water by using their legs as oars, moving their flattened hind legs in unison. They have a bubble of water stored under their wing covers to help them resurface, and they come to the surface tail first. As adults they can also fly around and find the perfect spring to live in.

To me, just the name predaceous diving beetle sounds a little scary. And learning that they are cannibalistic adds to their creepiness. So it took me some time to work up the courage to pick up a beetle to examine more carefully. After all, I didn't want to become part of its prey, even if it was just a nibble. 

After a few clumsy attempts, I finally managed to grasp the beetle and lift it up, making sure that its mouth was far from my skin. The photo doesn't do justice how wiggly the beetle was. It didn't really like me to hold it, and I didn't really like holding it, but I did it for you, the readers of this blog, for your personal edification. I'm sure you will feel intellectually stimulated after reading today's post. (Actually, I think you might be paranoid about these beetles if you see them, but that's really not my intent.)

It has six legs, just like any insect, along with two eyes, antennae, and mandible parts. Those mandible parts are what scared me. They're short but sharp, and anything that's sharp can really get your attention.

This particular species is widespread throughout North America. It has lots of close relatives; the family has about 475 species in North America. 

Apparently some species of these beetles are eaten fairly frequently in China, Thailand, and New Guinea, and are even raised for consumption. They reportedly taste like chicken. No, I'm kidding, the report I read said they taste rather bland. I have to admit that even though I sometimes do strange things, I did not taste this beetle for you. But if you want to taste one, let me know and we'll see if we can sort out something.

Closely related are the water scavenger beetles, in the family Hydrophilidae. Instead of using their legs like oars (both moving together), they use them like paddles (moving them alternately). Another difference is that when they come to the surface, they bring their head up first instead of their rear. 

Both predaceous diving beetles and water scavenger beetles will also eat carrion. So don't fall into a spring and die or you really will become dinner. 

The Many Faces of Desert Boy

I'm working on a post about some cool beetles, but I realize that I need some more time to research them. So when I need something fast to post about, Desert Boy is always an easy solution. 

One of my brothers said I've posted way too many photos of happy Desert Boy, so today here are some other expressions. Like the one above, where you can see a tired and crying Desert Boy. Maybe he's crying because he is so clean. 

Here's sleepy Desert Boy. The hike wore him out. Wait a minute, he didn't have to do the hiking, why is he so tired?

This is dirty and opinionated Desert Boy. He is not afraid to check out the scene and figure out what he wants.

Take two: Dirty and opinionated Desert Boy.  This is a look I'm seeing more often. His personality is definitely developing.

This Desert Boy doesn't think much of his cousin's music. It won't take him long till he thinks it's cool. (Sorry, that word "cool" just slipped in, and now that it's written I just can't bring myself to go back and delete it.)

Okay, I couldn't help myself, I had to put in one picture of a giggly, happy Desert Boy. It's just one picture, after all.