On our second day in Tucson, Jan, Steev, and I went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum . It is a 21 acre museum and zoo housing 300 species of animals and 1200 kinds of plants. Here are a few of the things we saw there.
I’m sorry that I don’t remember the species of this bird. It was interesting to be able to see it close up.
Here is a Gila Monster resting in the shade. It was behind glass as I would not otherwise have gotten this close.
This otter was Steev’s favorite and seemed very playful and active. It was also possible to watch him swimming from below the water level. Here he was watching Steev take his picture from above.
I had never seen a Coati before. This one was quite hard to spot at first but once I figured out where he was I was able to get a good picture.
There were many different kinds of dragonflies on different plants and around the water. Most of them didn’t pose but this pair had their tiny minds ocupied with other business.
I’ve seen butterfly gardens in many different places but this was the first I had seen that was not in an enclosed building. Apparently they are able to select the proper plants that attract the adult butterflies and also provide food for the larva. In this picture there are at least three butterflies easily visible but there were probably a dozen more that were better concealed.
This was a great place to visit, easier than the previous day’s hike and had water available all around. They even had a nice little restaurant and two gift shops. If you are ever in Tucson, it’s worth a visit.
Great photos and descriptive text again, Tom! So nice of you to take me along.
Also very thoughtful of you to provide that link to the museum which I also enjoyed.
As it happens, I have created a sort of Sonoran Desert environment in Second Life™ which made this recent outing all the more interesting to me.
The butterfly area was the most interesting for me…could not believe the number of butterfly among the plants; many more than at home where we have plants that “welcome” them. But watching the otter was also fun…or, rather, watching Steev being fascinated by it. But what a wonderful place to visit; as Tom said, if you are in Tucson, you should go!