Hi, I’m Jose the prairie dog. Do not call me a gopher or I will become very upset with you! (The main difference is that prairie dogs are fluent in English where gophers are not). I live in the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, which contains exhibits of flora, fauna, and natural history. On, Saturday May 22, 2004, I saw a vanload of Wildcats arrive from UA’s Undergraduate Biology Research Program. I overhead them talking and found out that they were from all over the country. Some of them were in Tucson for the summer as visiting scholars from other universities and supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to do biology research for the summer. Others were in the regular UBRP program funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)(grant #52003749), American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) and the Beckman Foundation. But they all looked like Wildcats to me! I followed them around the museum in the shadows. I was so sneaky that they never saw me. There was a close call out on the desert loop trail, but I slunk behind a jumping cholla cactus knowing full well that it did not really jump. They stood gawking at the cactus waiting for it to move, but of course it did not. Heh, heh, heh…

Anyway, let me go back to the beginning. As the big group of Wildcats waited for their fearless leader, Carol Bender, to pay for the museum visit, they listened to some information that a museum volunteer (docent) was giving about the first animal that the Wildcats would see at the museum, the screech owl. This is a cute little owl, but its big relatives are terrifying beasts that have snatched up many of my cousins. Fortunately this particular kind of owl, the screech owl that is, isn’t interested in prairie dogs so I passed by unharmed while skulking behind the Wildcats. When their fearless leader approached, the group craftily split into two, and I could follow only one group around the museum. Perhaps one of the Wildcats was wise to me, but I doubt it. I have not yet ascertained the depth of their knowledge, but even now I am typing on the computer of a Wildcat as he sleeps, and he seems unaware of my presence. In any case, the Wildcats got to see many things at the museum. There are limestone caves with stalactites and stalagmites, an exhibit on planetary natural history, invertebrates and reptiles (including scorpions and the Arizona coral snake and Arizona king snake), a walk-in aviary and hummingbird tent, other wildcats (including pumas and lynx), bears, wolves, coyotes, javelinas, otters, many plants (including ocotillo, yucca, jojoba, saguaro cacti, and “heh, heh, jumping cacti), and yes, even prairie dogs!!

At one point the Wildcats stopped off at the prairie dog exhibit. My buddies stood up on their haunches and looked at the Wildcats, putting on quite a show. The Wildcats thought they were exhibiting some kind of complex defense behavior. After their stroll through the museum was over, the Wildcats went into the gift shop. I followed them out to the parking lot and hitched a ride on the bumper of their van! And here I am in a dorm room at UA using one of their computers. What a fun trip it was for them and me. As soon as I get tired of eating Wildcat food, I will venture back to the Desert Museum, and sneak back into the prairie dog exhibit to get some nutritious prairie dog food. But for now, I am really digging this salsa that we stopped and picked up on the way back to the UA. Hasta luego.

Daniel Wood, UBRPer in Dr. Jesse Martinez’s lab, Radiation Oncology