Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Water Holes of the Sand Dunes: Anyone can add to scientific knowledge
March 4, 2009

Malcolm McElvaney is a young man with a mission. For the last two years he has been fascinated with the waterholes of the sanddunes just west of the Llano Estacado. Using Google Earth, he locates dark spots in the dunes and records their GPS coordinates, and then sets out across the dunes almost every weekend. He records the life at the waterholes with digital still and video photography. He is a beginner, anxious to learn everything he can about what he finds. Some of his images are on our website in this photo essay, Waterholes of the Dunes.

After he brought almost 20 gigabytes of imagery to the Sibley Nature Center, the staff examined the material. As we identified the organisms in his photos, none of the staff knew the plant we now know as Buchnera americana, that he had photographed in 2008. We sent the images to Michael Eason of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, who immediately identified it. We then contacted Dr. Michael Powell of Sul Ross University, who reported it was not in their collections of the sand dunes, but he wondered if it could be B. floridana, which has been found in Crockett County.

Botanist Steve Nelle of the San Angelo NRCS (Texas Natural Resources Conservation Service) office told us that a BRIT (Botanical Research Institute of Texas) publication indicated it had been found in West Texas. When we contacted Robert J. (Bob) O’Kennon , President of the Texas Land Conservancy, Vice Chariman and Research Scientist at BRIT, he confirmed its identity as B. americana.

The Wildflower Center, Sul Ross, and BRIT would all like a specimen of the plant for their herbariums. O’Kennon reported that Dr. Chester Rowell collected B. floridana near Kermit in 1968. Both of the species are ephemerals, only germinating in optimal conditions. Triodanis perfoliata, or Venus’ Looking Glass, is a species with similar habitat requirements in West Texas, and members of the Midland Naturalists have only seen it four years out of over forty years of observation. Malcolm only found one specimen of the Buchnera at only one of over 20 waterholes he has examined. He may not find it again in 2009, especially if the dry weather continues to plague the region.

We posted a request on the New Mexico Native Plant Society Listserve for folks to tell us if anyone had seen Buchnera in New Mexico. Roger Peterson of the New Mexico Natural History Institute responded. He had researched the botany of the habitat in New Mexico extensively and had published several papers on the region, and to his knowledge, Buchnera americana has not been found in New Mexico sanddunes. Malcolm’s record is a significant range extension for the species, and botanists across the state were excited about his find. We hope Malcolm continues to explore the sanddune region. What else will he find?

Peterson also noted the isolated range of Bull Nettle (Cnidoscolus texana) found in the sand dunes within 35 miles of Monahans, stating that he had never seen it in New Mexico. We discussed the idea that bull nettle was transported to the area by humans, either by Indians or early settlers. The nuts of the "nasty weed” are quite edible, once you extract them from the hairy pods that can leave horrible welts on a person’s skin.

Earlier in 2008 Steve Nelle had discovered a different willow near a waterhole in the sanddunes, as well. He believes the species to be a coyote willow (Salix exigua), with a very hairy underside to the leaves. However, in the Guadalupe Mountains, an endemic species of willow is covered with hair on both sides of the leaves. Nelle’s willow might be a hybrid between the two, or a transitional form of the hairy species.

A couple of years ago a graduate student passing by the Monahans State Park discovered a species of beetle new to science (type "sanddunes beetle" in the search engine to learn about the species).

John Egbert, a former director of the New Mexico chapter of the Nature Conservancy, noted that west of Tatum, New Mexico the sand dunes hold several endemic species of organisms such as the sand dune lizard, Sceloporus arenicolus, the endemic Jerusalem Cricket, Stenopelmatus mescaleroensis, Mescalero Shield-back Katydid, Plagiostira mescaleroensis, as well as the Mescalero Thread-legged Katydid, Arethaea mescalero. He had not found the Buchnera in the Mescalero dunes west of Tatum, either. This raises a question – are the Jerusalem crickets and katydids found at Monahans the endemic “mescaleroensis,” or different species. The next time we find one in the dunes, we will collect it, and send it out to be identified.

Students of all ages in Monahans, Kermit, Wink, Crane, Imperial, Grandfalls, Hobbs, Tatum, and Portales can make discoveries. We hope that our teacher training in the Monahans sand dunes in March (in partnership with Region 18 Education Service Center) will encourage some teachers to schedule field trips to their nearby sand dunes. Malcolm’s photoessay is required reading for the participating teachers, by the way. We also hope that biology professors at UTPB, Odessa and Midland College, the College of the Southwest in Hobbs, the New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs, and Eastern New Mexico State in Portales will also send students out into the dunes, and that a network of biology teachers and students will continue to develop and possibly eventually create a clearinghouse and library for sand dune research. We believe that there is many more discoveries to be made!

The Llano Estacado chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists will be exploring some sand dunes on a private ranch west of Lamesa in mid March. Young Nathan Taylor and his family live on a farm nearby, and have graciously arranged for the group to tour a neighboring ranch with sand dunes. At age 15, Nathan is a superb field biologist, with a special focus on botany and horticulture. These isolated dunes (part of the “blowout” from Cedar Lake or Lagunas Sabinas) may hold something new. Another large range of sand dunes on top of the Llano Estacado can be found near Muleshoe. Someday we hope to go exploring there, too!

We hope that some of the many folks that like to four-wheel on the dunes start taking a digital camera along on their excursions. A person does not have to know what they are seeing to find something new – just bring the photographs to us on a jumpdrive, and we will identify what you have found!

Related Photo Essay: Waterholes of the Dunes