Why do rattlesnakes rattle and hummingbirds hum?
How do flowers market themselves to pollinators?
Why do tarantulas cross the road?
Nature Notes investigates questions like these about the natural world of the Chihuahuan Desert region and the Llano Estacado every week. Through interviews with scientists and field recordings, this Marfa Public Radio original series reveals the secrets of desert life.
Join host Dallas Baxter on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:45 am during Morning Edition and 4:45 pm during All Things Considered. New episodes premier on Thursdays and replay on Tuesdays. Episodes are written and produced by Andrew Stuart and edited by Marfa Public Radio and the Sibley Nature Center in Midland, Texas.
Nature Notes is supported by Shield-Ayres Foundation.
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In the deep past, proto-crocodilians dominated the planet. And now, a West Texas fossil find has added a new species to the roster of these remarkable creatures.
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Between the dinosaurs' extinction and the fauna we know today, mammals have gone through a dizzying array of changes.
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The ant has evolved an organ specifically to host its “good bacteria.”
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The Big Bend Rio Grande and its tributaries once abounded in fresh-water mussels. But today, a native Big Bend mussel — the Salina mucket — is proposed for endangered species protection. What's driven this species to the brink and how can it be saved?
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Reviving streams means addressing the root causes of their decline. A new initiative aims to do just that by restoring the high grasslands where these desert lifelines begin.
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What archeologists call the “Goggle-Eye Entity” was painted or pecked at hundreds of sites in the desert borderlands, by a prehistoric people known as the Jornada Mogollon.
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The “ghost prints” of White Sands National Park are among the century's most remarkable archeological discoveries. And new findings strengthen the case that these Chihuahuan Desert footprints are also the oldest evidence of people in the Americas.
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Big Bend National Park is a place of wonders today. But its past includes equal wonders, and at the top of that list are its vanished dinosaurs.
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There's nothing more wondrous in a desert country than flowing water. But modern human activities have had stark effects on West Texas streams and creeks. Now, there's a new initiative to restore them.
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West Texas today is high and dry. But long ago it was beneath a shallow sea. In "Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Animals of Big Bend," the book's authors take readers into the region's singular fossil record — including the teeming life of this ancient ocean.