May 2023

What makes a cactus a cactus? Like our May Plant of the Month, a cactus is a succulent that has spines instead of leaves. Cacti are adapted to store water inside their pads or branches, making them a good fit for dessert or even prairie ecosystems with little rainfall each year. 

The prickly pear may look like an alien from another planet...but it still performs photosynthesis like other plants. It also shares more in common with a plant like the Sunflower than we may think, because it flowers, too. The "prickly pear" is a special cactus because it also produces fruit! Yes, fruit! The prickly pear has a "candy sweet" fruit that emerges in July, after the cactus flowers in May-June. If you decide to try prickly pear, make sure you have a grown-up's help! It is best to buy a prickly pear that was grown by a farmer (do not eat wild prickly pear because their spines can be hard to find and hurt your throat!). 

Photo by Wynn Anderson, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center; Bluff Lake Nature Center, iNaturalist, @ Bluff Lake

Prickly pear cactus plants have been grown and enjoyed by people like the Aztecs in Mexico for over 9000 years. Indigenous people in the US ate prickly pears and used the spines as needles and for water. Today, because they require little water and grow in harsh or depleted environments, scientists believe the prickly pear may be a good food, biofuel or bioplastic material, to replace corn.  But for neighbors like our May Animal of the Month, along with mule deer, rabbits, and even coyotes, the prickly pear provides food and water as it is grown. 

The Plains Prickly Pear, like the one pictured below at Bluff Lake, usually only grows to about 1 foot in height. Other cousins to our local prickly pear can grow as big as 5 feet tall, and 10-15 feet wide.

Shout out to our second rodent to be chosen local animal of the month--the prairie dog! Prairie dogs are small, tan rodents (that grow to about 16 inches and 2-4 pounds) that are very social. They live in groups called "coteries," and dig tunnels to build complex underground housing called prairie dog "towns." The largest prairie dog town on record, found in Texas, was over 25,000 square miles--imagine a square drawn from Colorado Springs, CO, to Cheyenne, WY! In the words of the World Wildlife Federation (WWF), this rodent may look like a Chicken Nugget, but it is tough! If you are around Bluff Lake and a prairie dog guard starts chirping its warning, steer clear. Like other rodents, prairie dogs have tough teeth and sharp claws. Prairie dogs are special because they communicate so much. In fact, scientists believe that their calls and barks are so specific, they identify what type of creature approaches their town!

Prairie dogs live in family groups of about 25 individuals, with female members of the family sticking together across generations. Unlike groundhogs which hibernate, prairie dogs are dormant in winter--they sleep for many days at a time, but are active above ground on mild winter days. Prairie dogs do not store food, so head out of their towns to eat grasses, shrubs, flowers, and even our May Plant of the Month, the prickly pear cactus! Prairie dogs might carefully break off a bloom or fruit, but they can also work around the spines with their nimble toes to avoid the sharp spines.

The prairie dog is a keystone species. Prairie dogs are "key" to the survival of many other species around them. Without the keystone species, an ecosystem can become unhealthy and out of balance. World Wildlife Federation estimates that prairie dogs support over 136 other species, either as a food source (to many predators, like the red tail hawk or coyote), a source for animals' homes (like black-footed ferrets or even rattlesnakes), or to help prepare soil and spread seeds for plants. 

Some traditional stories of indigenous people, relate prairie dogs to water. Jicarilla Apache stories, for instance, tell of a person weak with thirst who is saved by a prairie dog. The prairie dog provides a small amount of water at the person's request; and though it is small, it is enough. Scientists agree that the burrow system prairie dogs create are very important in dry areas, because they can help water from aquifers (large lakes of water underground) move to the surface, and start a rain cycle. Prairie dogs have other benefits to the land, like keeping it cool, "clipping" nearby vegetation to bring nutrients back to it (nitrogen), and controlling some plant species in areas grazed too much by cattle.