Sabino Canyon by David Wentworth Lazaroff

Author:David Wentworth Lazaroff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 2015-07-14T04:00:00+00:00

Interlopers from the Bajada

At the southern end of Lower Sabino Canyon, Sabino Creek leaves the mountains and flows onto a gently sloping skirt of sediments that rings the base of the Santa Catalinas. Ecologists usually call this formation a bajada ("buh-HA-duh"), though geologists insist that its upper reaches are more properly termed a pediment. The bajada is a sunnier, drier environment than the canyon, and its desertscrub vegetation is simpler and more open than the diverse paloverde-saguaro community of the canyon walls. Partly for these reasons, some of the bajada's animals are different as well.

The situation is particularly remarkable in the case of reptiles. Many of Sabino Canyon's lizards and snakes are completely replaced on the bajada by close relatives. For example, on the bajada, desert spiny lizards take the place of Clark's spiny lizards, zebra-tailed lizards substitute for greater earless lizards, and coachwhips replace Sonoran whipsnakes. A few bajada species, such as the regal horned lizard, have no canyon counterparts. Although the canyon and the bajada do have some lizards and snakes in common, to reptiles they seem to be two very different worlds.

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