OK…you have to be really left brained not to see a creature here 🙂
Teddy Bear Cholla live on after death!
Tag Archives: skeleton
tortoise shell
On an outing with fellow stewards yesterday, one of them found a Desert Tortoise skeleton. We gathered the pieces to give to the Conservancy for education but I was given permission to take it home to photograph it first.
It was interesting to me to find that the colorful part of the shell was actually a thin covering which breaks off in segments. The pieces were made of material similar to our fingernails.
I held up one of the segments and sure enough, it had the beautiful coloring that makes it popular for things like sunglasses combs and hair accessories. Thankfully, it’s not our Desert Tortoise’s shells that are prized for manufacturing decorative materials. That turns out to be the shell of the Hawksbill Turtle.
act of nature
A more acceptable cause of death in Saguaros is an act of nature. In this case, it was probably a lightning strike.
Note: For those digital darkroom users out there, you can probably tell that I’ve been playing with High Dynamic Range (HDR) this week. It’s hard to resist when you have clouds. Forgive me for getting a little carried away sometimes 🙂