Product details
- ISBN 9780816554201
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 140 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 06 Oct 2026
- Publisher: University of Arizona Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The Sonoran Desert has many marvelous and well-known creatures such as the javelina and the coyote, often found on postcards and lawn ornaments. But what about the lesser-known creatures—the ones that are underfoot yet unseen, that lurk only in the shadows and in our imaginations? In this collection of essays, prose poems, and illustrations, naturalist Gary Paul Nabhan and artist Robert J. Long team up to celebrate these unsung beings of the Sonoran Desert.
This desert bestiary includes creatures whose existence lies largely in traditional story and belief, as well as creatures whose life cycles are so cryptic they seem mythic, such as the walking catfish and the carbunco. Positioned at the dynamic intersection of folklore and natural history, the book reflects on the reasons why human imaginations over the ages have reached into this realm of seldom seen but often intuited animals. Focusing on small animals and charismatic mini-fauna, Nabhan expands our understanding of the natural world by delightfully describing the interactions between animals and plants.
This more-than-natural history is for anyone who finds joy in the marvels of the natural world.
Gary Paul Nabhan an Arab American writer, desert food artisan, and garden designer. He is the founder of the Sacred Plant Recovery Initiative and the author of more than thirty books, including Agave Spirits and The Desert Smells Like Rain. Nabhan is the recipient of such awards as a MacArthur Genius Award and a Lannan Literary Fellowship.
Robert J. Long is an associate teaching professor of visual communication at Northern Arizona University. His visual art, made under the pen name NearsightGraphite, has been published through Frontiers in Microbiology, Manifest Press, the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry, and Edible Baja Arizona magazine, among others. His award-winning work has been shown in juried gallery exhibitions in the United States and abroad since 2008.
