Sonoran Desert Museum - Teddy Bear Cholla Cactus
Here is an Arizona riddle for you — when is a museum not a museum? When it is a zoo. That is the mystique of the Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson. It is, in fact, a zoo featuring the plants and animals from the Sonoran Desert — that part of our country encompassing the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix area) and south into Mexico. Here is a beautiful stand of Teddy Bear Cholla cactus. It sports a soft appearance due to its solid mass of very formidable spines that completely cover the stems, leading to its sardonic nickname of "Teddy Bear". Like its cousin the jumping cholla, the stems detach easily, so one must watch where they are going so they don't get a cholla ball attached to their skin. The spines are barbed, and hold on tightly. Desert pack rats, such as the Desert Wood rat, gather these balls around their burrows, creating a defense against predators.
Size: 6648px × 4432px
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA
Photo credit: © B. David Cathell / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: amphibian, aquarium, arizona, art, aviary, bdavid, bear, biotic, botanical, cactus, center, cholla, classes, communities, coyote, deer, desert, dinosaur, earth, ecosystem, fresh, gallery, garden, gray, hall, history, hummingbird, invertebrate, javelina, lion, lizard, mexican, mountain, mule, museum, natural, prehistoric, reptile, salt, sciences, sonoran, sonorasaurus, stingrays, teddy, tucson, vibrant, warden, wolf, wolves, zoo
