The desert is filled with creatures that are dangerous and terrifying in their ways. Life is tough, and in short, everything that lives there is eating everything else, and everything else is trying not to be eaten. Life has evolved a huge variety of defensive adaptations, including spikes, spines, tough shells or out layers, poisons, and many others. We were in Death Valley last weekend, and early one morning I seemed to have discovered a terrifying new creature, one whose claws look almost dinosaurian.
Those terrifying claws actually
are dinosaurs, although of the avian kind. Few birds were out and about during our visit, but the Common Raven (
Corvus corax) was a constant presence. That they thrive in this harsh and barren world is a testament to their versatility and intelligence. If I had to predict the species that would evolve into the dominant organism in terrestrial environments after the humans obliterate themselves, my money is on the raven. Like humans, they are curious, they are opportunistic omnivores, they are toolmakers, and they are problem solvers. And they can live in a shocking range of environments from the icy shores of Arctic Canada, Alaska and Greenland, to the driest and hottest deserts of the American West. Their range extends into the rainforests of Central America.
Their black color sometimes makes them hard to photograph, but in a desert setting like Death Valley, it becomes more of a goal to place them within dramatic landscapes. From our camp at Stovepipe Wells, we had a beautiful morning view of the Cottonwood Mountains. A pair of ravens were flying in the distance.
Our last 24 hours in Death Valley National Park involved a violent windstorm. It briefly subsided while we packed to go home, but the wind started up again, and the dust storm rose over the Mesquite Dunes in the distance. A Raven seemed to be heading out to investigate...because that's just what our future overlords would be doing.
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