Cactus Fruit

Living in Arizona for many years, I've learned to avoid spending a lot of time outdoors in the state's vast deserts during the summer.  It seems that this forbiddingly hot season signals its arrival with the  blooms and subsequent fruit of the massive saguaro cactus in late May and early June.  And I've recently noticed that when I bravely venture back into hiking in the desert at the very end of September when temperatures finally start peaking at less than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, another cactus known as the prickly pear has also bloomed and is still offering its own ripe fruit.  

Native peoples have always relied on the bounty of the cactus as part of their survival in the arid conditions of the Southwest.  Not only eating the fruit, they also ate the cactus pad like modern Mexicans and other gourmets still do when they shop for nopales in the supermarket.   

Needless to say, a wide variety of animal life also dine on this seasonal gift.  Scientists theorize that the overabundance of fruit we often see is because the plant co-evolved with megafauna like the giant ground sloth that is now extinct but that once fed on vast quantities of the spiny delicacy.  

There are no longer any one ton creatures roaming the area, but multiple varieties of the prickly pear cactus still provide enough sustenance to feed them.  Lucky for the much smaller animals like birds and lizards that still live in the desert, summer's harvest is a cornucopia of fruit ripe for the picking. 

Prickly pear cactus fruit.

Prickly pear cactus fruit.

Prickly pear cactus fruit.

Cactus wren with prickly pear cactus fruit.

Desert spiny lizard with prickly pear cactus fruit.

Curved-bill thrasher with prickly pear cactus fruit.

The cactus wren is not feeding on cactus fruit but maybe on the sticky web of the cochineal's scale, a cottony, waxy mass that protects the insect's eggs.  The cochineal feeds on the prickly pear cactus pad and is a natural source of red dye.  The cactus provides yet another source of sustenance.