Habitats of the Llano Estacado
Alkali Soils
Photoessay – Midland County Salt Lake - September, 2009 (Part 2 of 2)
In September 2009, the Llano Estacado chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists photographed at a salt lake (salina) south of Midland on a private ranch. Carol Anne Bauer, Cathy Hoak, Chris Cherry, Dave Taylor, Nina McCart, Nathan Taylor, Malcolm McElvaney, Todd Choban, and Burr Williams contributed photographs.
Click here for Part 1 of this photoessay
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What made this rock so orange?
Pickleweed grew near another orange rock.
What killed the pickleweed?
The sleeping rattler did not move, as members of the group wandered past over a thirty minute period.
Dried algae littered wet mud with small holes and germinating halophytic purslane kin.
Rock and wood created interesting textures.
What is the story behind the purple rocks? A surprising amount of diversity in the colors and textures of rocks were found along the bluffs.
Is this an outcropping of Triassic clays (part of the “red beds” where water is found when digging water wells in the region)?
Some of the sand near the sandstone was a vivid deep red.
Was this a place where Indians may have sat and processed paint (made from the colored rocks)?
The sea blite germinated in the cracks of the mud.
The algae was still drying, and still retained some color of the algae.
This stink beetle tilted up so high that he almost fell over.
Termite castings displayed alkali flecks – what do the calcium carbonates do to the stomach of an earthworm?
Is this a ribcage of an animal that had died and washed into the salina? Or?
This beetle is normally found on sunflowers, but was resting on an alkali sacaton grass.
A species of a blue butterfly rested on the pickleweed.
This variety of gall had not been noticed on saltbush before, not by Sibley staff!
A tan longhorned beetle rested on the alkali sacaton grass.
Several species of Melanolopus grasshoppers can be found on the southern Llano Estacado.
The shelf fungus was reproducing, and the “spores” littered the trunk of the mesquite.
Orb weaver eggs are neatly packed into the egg sac of the spider.
The pickleweed beetle was found several times.
Salt heliotrope is a common plant in the habitat.
Salt grass (Distichlis spicata) has a tight small bloom panicle.
Salt grass forms mats in the proper habitats, such as the bottom of some of the draws where they empty into a salina.
A tiny caterpillar was found on the sea blite.
Sideblotched lizards scampered through the alkali sacaton and pickleweed.
The throat of the sideblotched lizard had an interesting pattern.
This species of Guara had very small blossoms.
At the edge of the standing water, the algae made interesting patterns, such as this,
Or this,
Or this,
Or this.
This species of beetle is found in a number of habitats.
A tiny orange beetle was found in the wet alkaline soil.
So was a large “snail eating” beetle – Sibley staff’s slang common name.
A spider web caught a number of seeds, and a small bug crawled over the web without getting snared.
A red and black plant bug was caught in the alkali sacaton.
A species of bug were leaving their eggs all at the same time,
And they quickly hid under the alkali sacaton leaf.
A cricket crawled through some of the dead leaf and twig litter of salt cedars.
“Alkali’d” millipedes retain considerable detail.
Dragonflies laid eggs,
And notice how the water surface was pushed forward by the action.
Dozens of pairs of dragonflies were busy depositing eggs in the small shallow pool that remained in the bottom of the salina.
The base of a funnel web spider’s funnel is usually hidden underground.
What pulled the grasshopper into a hole?
Where a draw met the salina, seedling salt cedars covered the ground.
Is this a grasshopper nymph?
Salt cedar, alkali sacaton, and saltbush lined the draw at the edge of the salina.
Pickleweed also carpeted the ground in the draw.
Giant sacaton, salt cedar, and salt grass were further up the draw.
Jimmy weed seeds covered a spider web.
A jumping spider hid in a Kochia.
A flock of Lark Buntings came to the small area of water.
They perched on small twigs before coming to the water.
A mud turtle shell was found in the draw under the salt cedar.
Sepulgids are terrific predators of spiders, scorpions and other arthropods.
A southern prairie lizard stayed near the woody shrubs.
A barn swallow swooped over the small area of water.
As did what looks like a cliff swallow. These swallows were probably moving south during migration.
Several swallows swirled about for a few minutes.
Tiger beetles have ferocious looking faces!
Yet another species of velvet ant was found on the alkali soil.
And another species of velvet ant. Just how many species live on the Llano Estacado?
Walking sticks have a bizarre face.
Pickleweed clumps were near the open water.
Pickleweed and alkali sacaton grew under the bluffs.
A coyote track led through the mud flats.
The class investigated the small amount of the open water.
Notice the black line of organic deposits, where the open water once reached.
The sandstone outcropping extended for a considerable distance along the bluff.
A turtle track led across the open floor of the salina.
Jimmyweed prefers alkali soil.
A dead toad was also found on the open floor of the salina.
A narrow arroyo cut into one of the bluffs.
Some of the sandstone ledges were in place, under the gyp loess.
What does the layering seen in the gyp loess bluff indicate? Different sandstorms, different years?
More time could be spent investigating the bluffs.
Mating swallowtails formed a perfectly symmetrical pattern.