Veteran desert biologist Jim Cornett was astonished to see a bright yellow and black caterpillar munching on a spiny ocotillo plant one late March day. Normally the razor-spiked plants would not be considered fine dining — or dining at all — for those sphinx moth larvae and other creatures.
But the more he looked at the stand of gangly, twisted ocotillo, best known for their fluttering red springtime blooms, the more caterpillars he saw. It was a tiny but telltale sign of the unmistakable decline of those iconic plants and others in California’s deserts due to global warming, he and fellow experts say. And animals that are hungry for water are likely to play a role.
In a pair of recently published research articles, Cornett, of JWC Ecological Consultants, describes how ocotillos and another botanical giant of the southwest desert, Washington fan palms, are succumbing to the impacts of DryerHotter weather. Joshua trees, a keystone species that is important to many animals, are also in trouble, they said.
PIN IT
