October 22, 2010 The Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum

The Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum.

“The mission of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is to inspire people to live in harmony with the natural world by fostering love, appreciation, and understanding of the Sonoran Desert.

In a nutshell
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a world-renowned zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden, all in one place!”

Links:

http://www.desertmuseum.org/

http://www.desertusa.com/mag99/apr/stories/arb_asdm.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona-Sonora_Desert_Museum

What an incredible place!!  We arrived just in time for the orientation tour.  Our docent tour guide, Joe, first gave us an overview of the deserts of North America

and then the particulars of the Sonoran Desert – of which the Saguaro is its signature plant.   And on we went to tour the “Mountain Woodland” and “Desert Grassland” areas.   We learned so much about the plants and animals of these areas as well as some native uses of the plants, pods, and seeds.

For instance:

There is a male and female jojoba plant that is pollinated by bees.   The plant produces seeds that are prized for their oil.

The Palo Verde tree photosynthesize through their green bark since their leaves are small and it drops its leaves during the warm season and in response to fall cooling. They also drop stems and branches to combat drought.

The agave plant is also know as the century plant – flowers once in 100 years then dies.   Not totally true – the 100 year part, but it does take a long time for the plant to flower and then it does die. 

And, of course, lots of info on the Saguaro:

http://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/oz/long-fact-sheets/Saguaro%20Cactus.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saguaro

http://www.nps.gov/archive/sagu/Saguaros/saguaro.htm

Pictures from our tour:

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Throughout the tour, there were animal habitats too – fascinating:

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Joe also told us that at 2 PM, there was going to be a demonstration/training session of their family of Harris Hawks so we went for lunch then met him at the viewing area – another amazing adventure:

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My favorite – getting ready to land:

 

We finished the day by going thru the cave replica on gems and minerals found/mined in Arizona** and information on bats:

Can you hear me now???

If our ears were like bat ears, that is how huge they would be.. oh my.

 

There is so much to see and do here – one day is too short.   If I were to spend a month or a season here, I would get a membership and go a number of times…   Oh my, so much to see, so much to do, and so little time.

**Still on my bucket list – spend a season in the southwest and learn, find, and maybe even mine some of these gems and minerals…..:-))

We took the scenic route home thru Gates Pass Road:

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What a nice day!!