The Desert Creatures Lurking Among Us

By Jessica Flores

CREATED Feb. 19, 2012

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  • PALM DESERT- Get up close and personal with the creatures you may not see but could be living in your backyard. Video by kmir6.com

    video

PALM DESERT-- We're here at the living desert where we are about to get up
close and personal with some of our neighbors. They are the creatures
that you may not see but they are all around us. Come on let's take a
look..

Animal care-taker Sheila Lindquist first introduces me to the king
of the desert: The California King Snake.
And he is curious snake, but I find out he's relatively harmless.

"Their main protection in the wild would be to bite, but if you
picked it up in the wild and he was afraid he would musk all over
you," said Lindquist.

Although humans aren't on their menu, these snakes do eat small
mamals and even other snakes, but they face some obstacles.

"Their habitat is threatened mainly because we are building where
they live," said Lindquist.

If you do see a snake in the wild, you'll know it's a California
king if it has white or yellow stripes going across the body.

Next I meet chuck. He's a Chuckwala and he's a shy desert creature.

"Their defense is mainly to hide," said Lindquist.

This veggy-eating lizzard is common in the desert, but hard to spot
because of its sand colored skin.

Then i meet the Bark Scorpian. It's native to Arizona and sometimes found here. The venom shoots
from their tail and could be deadly. But the type of scorpions most common to this desert will produce a bite similar to a bee sting.

Another creepy crawler you may come across: The Tarantula.

Their main defense is to shoot their bristly hairs off, which would
irritate your eyes.

We pay a visit to one of the more dangerous desert creatures: The
rattle snake.

They can strike about a third of their body length, so if a snake is 6 feet long they can strike about two feet out.

And your chances of seeing a rattle snake are even greater now. It's
snake season.

But one animal you won't see as much as in the desert. is the desert
iguana. Their numbers are declining

"The biggest predator the most dangerous animal in the desert are
humans," said Lindquist.

My last stop we see something you can't find here anymore. The
Mexican Wolf. Humans wipped them out from California.

For all the defense mechanisms these creatures have, I learn it's their ability to adapt to people that's keeping them around.


Jessica Flores, KMIR6 News.