Icon of the American Desert: The Mighty Saguaro Cactus

#saguaro #botany #cactus
Among the thousands of species of cactus, one really stands above the rest, a species that has become what can only be described as a tree, the Saguaro. They are endemic to the Sonoran desert of Arizona, South-Eastern California, and Northern Mexico, where they form strange forests across the desert slopes. Like most other cacti, the saguaro is a stem succulent, which means they use their thick stems as the main place they store water.
The saguaro is a keystone species in the Sonoran desert with many animals using these plants for food and shelter. The blooms of the saguaro are pollinated by a range of animals, from hummingbirds to bats, with the white winged dove surprisingly being one of the most important. No animal though loves saguaro more than the Gila woodpecker, not only do they enjoy the flower nectar, but they also like to make their nests inside the cactus, drilling cavities that the cactus forms callus tissue around, creating the perfect little cavity for the woodpecker to raise a family. Each season the gila woodpecker creates a new hole, so holes from the previous seasons are available for other birds that love the saguaro, but don’t have the special drilling beak of a woodpecker, like the elf owl, the world's smallest owl.
Sources
Anderson, Edward F. (2001), The Cactus Family, Pentland, Oregon: Timber Press, ISBN 978-0-88192-498-5
Cota-Sánchez, J. Hugo & Bomfim-Patrício, Márcia C. (2010), "Seed morphology, polyploidy and the evolutionary history of the epiphytic cactus Rhipsalis baccifera (Cactaceae)" (PDF), Polibotanica, 29: 107-129, retrieved 2012-05-15, pp. 117-118
Views of the National Parks: Stop #3 - Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea), National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, archived from the original on 2011-10-26, retrieved 2012-02-19
Bronson, Dustin R.; English, Nathan B.; Dettman, David L.; Williams, David G. (2011-08-06). "Seasonal photosynthetic gas exchange and water-use efficiency in a constitutive CAM plant, the giant saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea)". Oecologia. 167 (3): 861-71. Bibcode:2011Oecol.167..861B. doi:10.1007/s00442-011-2021-1. ISSN 1432-1939. PMID 21822726. S2CID 25829629.
Rabe, Michael J. (June 2009). Sanders, Todd A. (ed.). "Mourning Dove, White-winged Dove, and Band-tailed Pigeon: 2009 population status"(PDF). Laurel, Maryland: United States Fish and Wildlife Service. pp. 25-32. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
"Article 11: Arizona Native Plants". Arizona Department of Agriculture. Archived from the original on September 20, 2013.
Mikkelson, David (February 8, 2015), Death by Saguaro, Snopes, retrieved 2017-01-20
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