Species account by Benjamin Felser, of Bowdoin College. Sky Island Borderlands Spring 2021 program. Yucca moth larvae come into quite a luxuriant world. They emerge from their eggs into a warm, moist cavity stocked with all the yucca seeds they…
Species account by Walt Emann, of Oberlin College. Sky Island Borderlands program, Spring 2021. If you find yourself wandering around the Sonoran Desert wilderness, you ought to keep a sharp eye out for dangerous mammals and stalking felines, especially mountain…
Species account by Olivia Sena, of University of Vermont. All photos credited to Sky Island Alliance. The common porcupine is a peculiar yet endearing rodent species of the Sky Islands region. Commonly known to inhabit deciduous, coniferous, and mixed forests…
By Perrin Milliken, of Bowdoin College RRCS Spring 2021 Sky Island Borderlands program Our semester so far has been characterized by many short trips away from Ruby. We’ve been to the east, towards the border city of Nogales where we…
By Bethany Holland, of Ithaca College. We continued our boarder wildlife vegetation surveys and camera checks in the Patagonia Mountains, and sometimes we’d find fun surprises inside and outside the cameras. Within the bear box of one camera, two giant…
by Wren Garrison, of University of Vermont Sky Island Borderlands Student Program Spring 2021 – WEEK 1 From the first moment I stepped foot in the abandoned old mining town of Ruby, my home for the next three months, I…
By Lucca Sterrer of University of Vermont Walking through the rich forests of Southern Patagonia, it is not uncommon to be approached by one or a few of these brightly colored, curious little birds. Thorn-tailed Rayaditos (Aphrastura spinicauda) are…
By Anna Bosco of Oberlin College When I think of Patagonia, one of the first images that comes to mind is that of vast, hilly expanses covered in neneo bushes. Neneo (Mulinum spinosum), a medium-sized cushion plant, dominates the arid…
Kira Warm of Sara Lawrence College The Rhea penneta, commonly known as Lesser Rhea in English (or Ñandu in Spanish), is a flightless bird that looks similar to a small ostrich. These birds inhabit open scrub grasslands in Patagonia as…
By Ayana Harscoet of Bowdoin College In the very south of South America, far from the deserts of northern Africa and central Asia, lives a close relative of the camel: the lesser-known guanaco, or Lama guanicoe. These slender, graceful-looking camelids…
By Seth Price of Binghamton University Formally described by none other than the famous British naturalist Charles Darwin, Darwin’s Fungus (Cyttaria darwinii) is a real-life illustration of the complex ecological forces that can shape a species. In Spanish, the fungi…
by Oscar Psychas, of Middlebury College After we were sent home in response to the pandemic, we students find ourselves completing our online coursework in the quietness of our homes back in the States. For those of us who are…
Rob McManus of CSBSJU Two of the most prevalent things you can find almost anywhere in Patagonia are spikes and condors. During the moments we were not looking down at the ground trying to avoid the thorny neneo (Mullinum spinosum)…
by Oscar Psychas, of Middlebury College Every time we went down to the river for a game drive, I would look out for these this boisterous group of bachelor waterbucks. They always seemed to be having a good time with…
by Meghan Murphy, of University of Vermont Botswana student program – Spring 2021 The Okavango Delta hosts over 400 species of birds, and during our shortened stay I was able to pass the 150 mark. This vast diversity of avifauna…
By Maxwell King of University of Vermont Chucao Tapaculo (Scelorchilus rubecula) Like many species of birds in Chile, the common name of the chucao tapaculo is an onomatopoeic derivation from its song. The surprisingly loud “chu-chu-chu-caao” ringing out through the…
by Grace Horne, of Colby College We had many close encounters with wildlife during our time in Botswana. One night during dinner, Shayla walked to the kitchen tent to put her dish away. Her light illuminated a male hyena. Gen…
By Lewis Short of University of Vermont Arriving in South Africa en route to Botswana, the first thing I noticed were the birds – they were everywhere, singing their songs and waking me up from my winter hibernation in Vermont….