Field Notes
Friday Fauna Feature: Striped Skunk
April 18, 2022Written By: Aleidys Lopez Romero Conservation Status: Least Concern Perhaps you can recall a time when you were young, snuggled up on your couch with a cup of hot chocolate…
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Friday Fauna Feature: Gila Woodpecker
April 8, 2022Written by Aleidys Lopez Romero Description Picture this: You’re hiking around your favorite lowland region in the Sky Islands. The wind is blowing on your neck as the blazing sun…
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Friday Fauna Feature: Gila Monster
March 18, 2022Written by Aleidys Lopez Romero While our species this week is certainly not the poster-child of “cute and cuddly,” their unique coloration and venomous bites are definitely a showstopper. We…
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Friday Creature Feature: Gray Fox
November 6, 2020Two fox species have been detected in the Sky Islands. One of these—the gray fox—is this week’s Friday creature feature! The gray fox is considered an urban-adapted species and is one of the animals listed on our FotoFauna checklist. So, grab a…
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Rock Squirrel or Gray Squirrel?
August 27, 2020Many squirrel species are native to the Sky Island region and appear on our wildlife cameras. The two we see most often are the rock squirrel (Otospermophilus variegatus) and the Arizona gray squirrel (Sciurus arizonensis)—these two species can look very similar, but once…
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World Lizard Day: Lizards of the Border Wildlife Study
August 13, 2020Today is World Lizard Day! The Southwest is famous for its high diversity of lizards and is a hot bed of herpetological research. If you’ve been outside at all during the summer in the Sky Islands, there…
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Friday Fauna Feature: Border Wildlife Study Pollinators
June 26, 2020We designed our Border Wildlife Study to detect vertebrate species such as mammals and birds. Surprisingly, we keep finding invertebrates on our cameras and we love the multitude of insects…
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Friday Fauna Feature: Animals Immediately Return after Fire at the Border
June 19, 2020On May 31, 2020, lightning ignited a wildfire in the San Rafael Valley near the U.S.-Mexico border at one of Border Wildlife Study camera sites. After several days, the fire reached our wildlife camera as it burned across about 400…
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