It could be said that all Bighorns have horns but not all Bighorn have big horns. While this sounds a little bit confusing, basically it means that both male and female Bighorn sheep have horns. However their horns are quite different from one another in both size and structure.
The reason for this series of articles is to give readers the tools and concepts to increase their knowledge of Bighorn Sheep and the value of their own personal experiences in the desert when they're in Bighorn habitat or have the good fortune to actually see some of these magnificent animals.
By knowing a little bit about the Smoketree one can learn a lot about the desert. This tree marks out many unique environmental features in the desert.
Today we see many large-scale solar plants and wind farms changing the ecology of the Mojave Desert. However there are many other changes being brought about that are not as well-known such as the devastation brought on by the wild Burro and Tamarisk.
The creosote bush is truly the unnoticed elephant in the room. If someone were to weigh the biomass of the desert Southwest, this species would certainly possess the highest percentage of life and we would find that a high percentage of all other life in the desert is dependent upon it, yet its importance in the desert environment goes unappreciated by both scientists and artists alike.
To understand any environment on earth one must understand how the wind works its way through that environment because as the wind works its way through the environment it affects all things and in many ways. While the wind is often invisible, its effects are not; for example, it can scour away the soil from one place and deliver it to another.
The Coso Mountain petroglyphs are the last remnant of a society that started thousands of years ago and lived almost to our present time. And through the artistry and symbolism of these petroglyphs we know that it was a hunter gather society that was based on hunting desert bighorn sheep.
Petroglyphs prove that the beauty and thoughts of the human mind can travel immense distances in time and that the beauty can still be recognized and the thoughts still valued. Having a basic understanding of these petroglyphs will give us a pathway to travel back in time to the environment in which they were made and give us some understanding of it.
In the Mojave Desert you'll find a species of snail that is truly one of the most interesting life forms that live there and yet it is often overlooked or unknown to most people. To start with, this snail has a shiny black body and of course its common name is "white desert snail".
A long time ago, perhaps as much 2000 or 3000 years, an Indian was hunting for bighorn sheep in a land that he'd never hunted before. The sheep sign was getting thicker, it seemed, with every step until he came to the edge of a cliff and looked down and saw a pool of water, where the bighorn sheep had been watering for untold ages.
The desert is full of all kinds of treasures, gold, silver, and other rare elements. Even water in the desert can be considered a treasure and the source of immense wealth. One of the greatest treasures that we have in the desert is art, and we can truly call this art a treasure.
This place name I have heard of more than once, and like so many place names this one has a story behind it. And of course this story is about the coyotes digging holes; so if one understands why they dig these holes in the desert, they will understand the coyote better, and this of course will lead to better understanding of the entire ecosystem.