Andrew Stuart

It’s the first discovery of a new plant genus in a national park in decades, and a landmark find. But the identification of Ovicula biradiata, the “wooly devil,” began with a simple walk in the park. The discovery is a reminder that while known for its vast landscapes, Big Bend National Park is also a place of hidden surprises.

Drawn by people, dogs or, later, horses, travois were a mainstay of traditional Native American life in the West. Up through the 19th century, nomadic peoples used these sleds – typically fashioned of two long poles lashed together into an A-frame – to transport their belongings.

Lubbock Lake is one of several important archeological sites on the West Texas plains that testify to the earliest Americans, the “Paleoindians.”

Mississippi kites are slender and elegant, with 3-foot wingspans and plumage that fades from black to a pale gray-white. They once summered mostly in the Southeast, nesting in deciduous trees. But as people brought those trees to the Texas plains, the kites followed

Pound-for-pound, grasshopper mice are among the fiercest predators in the desert borderlands, and they’re unfazed by venomous prey.

Standing 2 and a half feet high, with wingspans of 7 feet or more, golden eagles are the apex avian predator of West Texas. The region is home to golden eagles that breed here and are year-round residents, as well as eagles that travel here from more northerly climes in winter.

Nature Notes

West Texas is rich in reptiles, and the western hognose snake is one of the region’s stars. Its calling card is its shovel-like face, but the snake – which poses no threat to humans – also has a host of fascinating behaviors and adaptations.

Trans-Pecos Texas has a stunning diversity of reptiles and amphibians, and herpetologists, both professional and avocational, flock here from around the world. Now, researchers are turning their attention to one example of that diversity – a mysterious lizard known as the Dixon’s whiptail.

Gypsum landscapes occur globally, but they abound in the Chihuahuan Desert, from Coahuila and Durango to the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas and New Mexico’s White Sands. These white-sand outcrops are certainly harsh. But they’re also hotspots of biodiversity. That includes the complex, fragile ecosystems known as “biocrusts.”