The University of Arizona Press
Sonoran Desert Bestiary
A More-than-Natural History
The Sonoran Desert has many marvelous and well-known creatures such as the javelina and the coyote, often found on postcards and lawn ornaments. But what about the lesser-known creatures—the ones that are underfoot yet unseen, that lurk only in the shadows and in our imaginations? In this collection of essays, prose poems, and illustrations, naturalist Gary Paul Nabhan and artist Robert J. Long team up to celebrate these unsung beings of the Sonoran Desert.
This desert bestiary includes creatures whose existence lies largely in traditional story and belief, as well as creatures whose life cycles are so cryptic they seem mythic, such as the walking catfish and the carbunco. Positioned at the dynamic intersection of folklore and natural history, the book reflects on the reasons why human imaginations over the ages have reached into this realm of seldom seen but often intuited animals. Focusing on small animals and charismatic mini-fauna, Nabhan expands our understanding of the natural world by delightfully describing the interactions between animals and plants.
This more-than-natural history is for anyone who finds joy in the marvels of the natural world.
“Sonoran Desert Bestiary is a delightful amalgam of the material and the imaginal, inviting us to see the desert as a charmed landscape vibrant with creative tensions and deep ancestral wisdom.”—Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative
“Be they rumored or confirmed, mythic or cryptic, venomous or hallucinogenic, seldom-seen or ever-present, the creatures described herein are each imbued with nothing short of magic. A book to cherish.”—Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River
“Folklore and natural history collide with delightful results. At turns whimsical, poignant, and haunting, Sonoran Desert Bestiary reminds us that the desert is big enough to contain almost anything, and the stories we tell about what might dwell there also illuminate ourselves.”—Melissa L. Sevigny, author of Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon
“The ingenious proposition at the heart of this wonderful book is that our fellow beings in the natural world are as strange as our wildest imaginings, while our wildest imaginings—our deepest collective fears and fantasies—produce folkloric beings that are culturally and psychologically real. Sonoran Desert Bestiary is an informative, playful, enthralling reminder of how the nature of the land and the nature or our imaginations remain intimately intertwined.”—Michael P. Branch, author of On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World’s Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer
“A captivating tribute to the Sonoran Desert’s otherworldly fauna.”—Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction
“Robert Long’s illustrations look back at you. These beasts are at once observed and invented, as if they’ve stepped out of science and into dream. They spark a daring curiosity to follow their tracks, with a field notebook and a flashlight."—Paul Mirocha, artist and illustrator of Coyote’s Wild Home
“This book is a crucial call to action, revealing the hidden lives of the Sonoran Desert’s mythic and not-so-mythic creatures, from the humble yet vital Pinacate beetle to the ancient Triops. It is through these stories—blending deep ecology with Indigenous wisdom—that we discover how to live sustainably, ensuring these species thrive for generations to come. Education is the key!”—Rodrigo A. Medellin, Instituto de Ecología, UNAM
“In Nabhan’s latest walkabout, he stumbles into a bar populated by familiar vertebrates, huge imaginaries, little scary stingers, sacred beings, legendary jokesters, puddle-jumpers, leprous shelled ancients, and luminescent feathered dancers. Dragging his capacious intellectual and spiritual backpack and bedroll, he’s back in the desert, in dusty campouts with his beasts and their human compañeros who wisely fear and admire them, their predations and predictions told beside a midnight fire.”—Rayna Green, curator, writer, and folklorist
“Robert Long’s scientifically accurate and magically beautiful depictions of Sonoran creatures are a perfect complement to Gary Nabhan’s stories of the more-than-natural. His illustrations harken back to the work of early artist-explorers who returned with convincing documentation of the sightings of amazing, sometimes fictitious, creatures that most people would never see. As I kept reading, I felt like the prehistoric three-eyed shrimp Triassic Triops, with a third eye enabling me to see so much more than I had seen before.”—Ellen McMahon, University of Arizona
“With help from friends of all walks, crawls, flights, and swims, we learn to see, hear, listen, maybe speak with, and certainly learn from the multitude of more-than-human beings that inhabit the richest desert on the planet—to go much farther in order to get much closer.”—Robert Anthony Villa, president of the Tucson Herpetological Society
