Neighbors of the Mojave
The creatures and plants the roadrunner shares this desert with. Residents, not visitors — each one has figured out something the desert demanded of it.
Greater Roadrunner
Geococcyx californianus
Somewhere out past the creosote, a bird is doing twenty miles an hour on foot and not the least bit sorry about it.
Desert Tortoise
Gopherus agassizii
The desert tortoise has been keeping the same schedule for millions of years: wait out the heat, wait out the cold, come up when the wildflowers do.
Gila Monster
Heloderma suspectum
The Gila monster does everything slowly, and it has never once needed to explain itself.
Coyote
Canis latrans
The coyote has been here longer than the desert has been a desert, and it has adjusted every single time the desert changed its mind.
Sidewinder Rattlesnake
Crotalus cerastes
Sand is a terrible thing to walk on and an even worse thing to have no legs on.
Gambel's Quail
Callipepla gambelii
You will hear a covey of Gambel's quail before you see it, and then you will see all of it at once — a dozen small round birds bursting out of the brush and running, topknots bobbing, into the next bush.
Merriam's Kangaroo Rat
Dipodomys merriami
There is an animal out on the dunes tonight that has never had a drink of water and never will.
Chuckwalla
Sauromalus ater
The chuckwalla has exactly one move and it is a good one.
Kit Fox
Vulpes macrotis
There is a five-pound fox out there tonight with ears too big for its head, and both facts are the point.
Joshua Tree
Yucca brevifolia
A Joshua tree is not a tree, has no growth rings, and cannot make a single seed without a specific moth showing up to do it by hand.
Teddy Bear Cholla
Cylindropuntia bigelovii
The name is a joke and the desert is in on it.
Las Vegas Bearpoppy
Arctomecon californica
This poppy grows in gypsum — pale, mineral, punishing soil that most desert plants can't touch — and that is precisely the point: nothing else wants the ground, so the bearpoppy gets it.
Creosote Bush
Larrea tridentata
If the desert has a smell, it's this: rain hitting creosote, resin lifting off a billion waxy leaves at once.