#bottomlands

It was a gorgeous evening and a short walk turned into a leisurely evening alongside the bayou. I made it home last night with cornsalad, wild lettuce, cutleaf evening primrose, and some Chinese yam leaves.

I had a raging headache most of the day and forced myself outside in the hopes it would make me feel better—it did.

Welcome to my mini-thicket! Where your standing would have historically been the far western edge of the Big Thicket - an ancient forest woodland with many mixed ecosystems within its boundaries. The Big Thicket, while arguably the most biodiverse place in America, is not what it once was. Most people, even Texan’s, have forgotten about this magical place and stopped visiting, funds are low - creating obstacles keeping The Big Thicket from being maintained properly. However, recent upticks in visitors from outside of the state have been helping the Big Thicket National Preserve. This is something in Texas to truly be proud of.

Fun facts:

1) Once home to an array of macro-fauna, around 10,000 years ago these animals mostly went extinct. Some of these animals of the big thicket will surprise you:

Prehistoric megafauna of the Big Thicket

Woolly Mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius): Large, hairy relatives of modern elephants that grazed on grasses and other vegetation.

American Mastodons (Mammut americanum): Shorter and stockier than mammoths, these elephant relatives browsed on leaves and tree branches.

American Horse (Equus simplicidens): An ancestor of modern horses.

Taylor's Bison (Bison antiquus): A larger, earlier relative of the modern bison.

Camels (Camelops hesternus): Prehistoric camel species related to modern camels but native to North America.

Tapirs (Tapirus spp.): Similar to modern tapirs, these animals likely inhabited the moist forests of the Big Thicket.

Giant Ground Sloths (Eremotherium eomigrans): Massive, slow-moving herbivores that likely browsed on trees and shrubs.

Dire Wolves (Canis dirus): Large predatory canids, bigger and more powerfully built than modern wolves.

Saber-toothed Tigers (Smilodon fatalis): Iconic large predators known for their impressive canine teeth.

Giant Armadillo (Dasypus bellus): A larger version of modern armadillos.

Short-faced Bear (Arctodus simus): A formidable predator twice the size of a grizzly bear.

What happened to them

These megafauna, along with other large mammals across North America, largely vanished around 10,000 years ago during the Late Pleistocene extinctions. The exact cause of these extinctions is a subject of ongoing debate, with both climate change and human hunting being significant factors:

Climate Change: The end of the last Ice Age brought significant changes to the environment, potentially impacting the habitats and food sources of megafauna.

Human Hunting: The arrival of early humans in North America around the same time period likely placed considerable hunting pressure on these large, slow-breeding animals, further contributing to their decline.

Ecological role and impact of their disappearance

These large animals, particularly herbivores like mammoths and mastodons, played a crucial role as "ecosystem engineers" in shaping the landscape of the Big Thicket, similar to how elephants influence modern African ecosystems.

Vegetation Structure: Megafauna helped maintain open areas within the dense thicket by consuming and trampling vegetation, creating a mosaic of habitats, notes the Royal Society.

Nutrient Cycling: Their movement and waste products facilitated the redistribution of nutrients across the landscape, improving soil fertility.

Fire Regimes: By reducing fuel loads through grazing, megafauna likely helped regulate fire frequency and intensity.

The extinction of these megafauna likely triggered significant changes in the ecology of the Big Thicket, resulting in a more homogenous and less diverse landscape. The absence of these large animals has created an ecosystem in a state of "relaxation" towards a new, megafauna-naive state, with potential implications for plant communities and fire regimes.

The Big Thicket was once home to probably the most biodiverse mammalian forest in America. Now extricated, these mammals used to call the Big Thicket home, until very recently.

Extricated or extinct animals of The Big Thicket

Black Bear (Ursus americanus): Once common, aggressively hunted and eliminated by the 1950s.

Gray Wolf (Canis lupus): Extinct in Texas.

Red Wolf (Canis rufus): Extinct in Texas.

Jaguar (Panthera onca): Once present in the Big Thicket.

Jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi): Extinct in Texas.

Margay (Leopardus wiedii): Extinct in Texas.

Black-footed Ferret (Mustela nigripes): Extinct in Texas.

Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos): Extinct in Texas.

American Bison (Bison bison): No longer part of the ecosystem.

Muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus): No longer present in the area.

Hog-nosed Skunk (Big Thicket subspecies) (Conepatus leuconotus leuconotus): Endemic subspecies, now disappeared.

3) Extraordinary Biodiversity: The Big Thicket is a transition zone where several different ecosystems converge, resulting in a unique and diverse array of plant and animal life. It boasts approximately 1,320 (probably more) species of plants, 60 mammal species, 86 reptile and amphibian species, and at least 300 bird species. It's even home to four out of the five known types of carnivorous plants found in the U.S. This exceptional concentration of varied species has earned it the nickname "America's Ark".

4) Globally Important: The United Nations recognized the Big Thicket National Preserve as a national biosphere reserve in 1981, highlighting its global significance in terms of biodiversity.

5) The Big Thicket holds the last known sighting of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker

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All photos from Colton Price.

Below, from top to bottom & left to right: Chapman’s Fringed Orchid, Red Milkweed, Pineland Hibiscus, Swamp Titi, Carolina Lily, Ghost Pipe, Pink Sundew, Pale Pitcher Plant, and Gulf Coast Yucca.

Monarda clinopodia on the right. Taller bottomland species on the left.