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WikiCommonsAt dusk on summer nights, white-lined sphinx moths flutter like hummingbirds around flowers of datura and evening primrose. Their dark wings bear light bands, and the underwings are cotton-candy pink. They hover above a flower only long enough to dip their long hollow tongues deep into the sugar-rich nectar stores. Then they fly off to another source, exhibiting some of the fastest flying speeds in the lepidopteran world. -
Melissa Sevigny/KNAUMost people think of a drought as a long, slow-moving disaster. But there is a growing number of “flash droughts” around the world. Like flash floods, these are short, intense events that arrive without warning. Flash droughts can develop in less than week and bring intense heat and dryness.
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Pinyon jays are sky blue birds that live in large flocks in the pinyon-juniper woodlands of the Colorado Plateau. They are not officially endangered, but their populations have plummeted in the last half-century. The Audubon Society has found an unusual way to raise awareness about their plight: specialty brews from the Drinking Horn Meadery in Arizona, and the Bosque Brewing Company in New Mexico. -
Four decades ago, naturalist and author Gary Paul Nabhan wrote a book called The Desert Smells Like Rain. The title came from the answer a young Tohono O’odham boy gave when asked what the desert smelled like to him.
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The Grand Canyon was full of wondrous creatures during the last Ice Age, including enormous ground sloths and soaring condors. Now, scientists say they can add an unexpected animal to the list: the American cheetah.
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“Taos” means "Place of the Red Willow,” in the Tiwa language spoken by the Pueblo people of New Mexico. Thus the name of the Red Willow Center at Taos Pueblo, a place designed to rekindle traditional agricultural knowledge.
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For centuries scientists have kept field logs with sketches and notes about their observations of nature. It’s an age-old technique that has grown into a new movement called Nature Journaling, which encourages ordinary people to make deep connections to the world around them.
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Astrobiologist Daniel Apai turns to the natural world for solutions to climate change. Lately, he’s been investigating one of Earth’s most basic lifeforms—abundant ocean-dwelling algae called coccolithophores.
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The coronavirus pandemic has worsened food access because of job loss and supply chain issues. More than two million Arizonans faced food insecurity last year, including many working poor who struggle to make ends meet, or those who live on tribal nations.
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Photographers have long been drawn to Glen Canyon’s unique landscape, both before and after it disappeared beneath the waters of Lake Powell. Now, the work of generations of photographers is on display at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, showcasing an otherworldly place forever changed by a dam.
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Archaeologists are using advances in technology to analyze fragments of turquoise found at the ancestral Hopi villages of Homol’ovi. Working with the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, they’re revealing the story of the origins of these beautiful blue-green stones.
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What makes up a forest? Most people might say “trees,” but the answer could be “treats” as well. That’s the magic of “food forests,” which have begun to grow in popularity in Europe and the United States, including on the Colorado Plateau.
