PETRIFIED FOREST — It was a day of “glorious play”, as more than 118 people, or “bionerds”, as they were lovingly called by Petrified Forest National Park biologists Andy Bridges and Pat Lopez, recorded and observed animals, birds, reptiles, insects and plant life throughout the park during the 2018 BioBlitz on Aug. 25-26.
While more than one-third of the registered Blitzers came from the Phoenix area, there were a number from across the White Mountains as well as Holbrook and Flagstaff, with a singular representation from both California and Utah.
Bridges said, “More than one of the groups that searched along the edges of the mesas found petroglyphs of birds, lizards and mammals, which wouldn’t qualify for an iNaturalist observation, but connected them to other resources in the park and brought it home that people have been watching and recording animals in the area for thousands of years.”
One of the features of the Blitz was to teach people how to upload and use the iNaturalist app. As Bridges shared, “This app isn’t just for Blitzes. It can be used to observe plants and animals at anytime, anywhere in the world. Our hope is that many of the citizen-scientists who learned to use iNaturalist during the event and were exposed to new techniques for finding and identifying plants and animals, will continue to contribute to a growing database of nature that is used by other scientists and researchers around the world.”
Bridges also noted, “We’re approaching 1,000 observations of over 280 different species from across the park for the event. Many people are still uploading photos and sounds, so the numbers will continue to increase over the next week and more.”
Some of the creatures that are often overlooked got star billing during the Blitz like the Great Plains Toad, the Plateau Fence Lizard, the Rufous Hummingbird and the Mexican Spadefoot as well as two plants, the Fourwing Saltbush and the Silverleaf Nightshade.
There was also an impressive array of spiders that had never been recorded in the park. Lopez said, “One of the most unusual observations was something called a stalked puffball, which is a kind of fungus that is not necessarily expected in this dry environment. We also have a spate of observations from parts of the park where we previously had very little information.”
Perhaps the greatest part of the Blitz was just the reconnection with friends and nature within the beautiful backdrop of the Petrified Forest. As Bridges shared, “Lots of people reconnected with old friends and made new friends while sitting around a campfire each night; while sifting through leaf litter looking for tiny spiders; or walking through cottonwood groves near a swollen river under a beautiful sky listening and looking for birds.”
Folks can check out the photos and map of observation locations on the 2018 BioBlitz at www.inaturalist.org/projects/petrified-forest-national-park-bioblitz-2018.
Information on uploading the app and becoming a citizen scientist can also be found at www.inaturalist.org.
