Nature Notes
Why do rattlesnakes rattle and hummingbirds hum?
How do flowers market themselves to pollinators?
Why do tarantulas cross the road?
Nature Notes investigates questions like these about the natural world of the Chihuahuan Desert region and the Llano Estacado every week. Through interviews with scientists and field recordings, this Marfa Public Radio original series reveals the secrets of desert life.
Join host Dallas Baxter on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:45 am during Morning Edition and 4:45 pm during All Things Considered. New episodes premier on Thursdays and replay on Tuesdays. Episodes are written and produced by Andrew Stuart and edited by Marfa Public Radio and the Sibley Nature Center in Midland, Texas.
-
The mountainous landscapes of West Texas testify to diverse aspects of the Earth's past – to the tectonic upheavals that raised the Rockies, to episodes… -
“History” is said to begin with the written word. And that can make us think that, in the absence of a written record, human life was somehow static or… -
There's a “solace in open spaces,” as the title of Gretel Ehrlich's memoir of life in Wyoming would have it, and Americans appear to have found that… -
Catastrophic wildfires have become numbingly familiar in the 21st Century American West. Smoke often obscures the summer sky. Air quality becomes… -
West Texas has a rich history in paleontology. Scientists have made finds here that have illumined the story of life on Earth. Now, an important new find… -
Finding a “potsherd” – a fragment of prehistoric pottery – is arresting, a potent reminder of the Native American past. It's always best to leave such… -
Stock tanks are as common as corrals and loading chutes in rural West Texas – this is ranching country, after all, and water for livestock is a high… -
They're among the most powerful animals on the planet. Like 200-pound pit bulls, they're stocky and square-jawed, with a bite that can readily crush a… -
The recent dating of fossilized human footprints in White Sands National Park – to 23,000 years old – makes it plain: people have lived in our region for… -
“You just can't live in Texas,” as Waylon Jennings sang, “unless you gotta lotta soul,” and West Texans might reasonably think it applies to them more…
