Due to car trouble, what was meant to be a week in Arizona ended up only being a couple of days. The monsoons had been fairly consistent over the last couple of weeks so there were high hopes for a fair amount of species diversity.
     The drive into the area was promising, although there was little greening evident, recent rain had left numerous puddles, some of them were quite large and rather daunting.

The habitat is fairly typical for mid-elevation Arizona, rocky hillsides, being dominated primarily by Acacia, Agave and Fouquieria., On the slopes "Shindagger" Agave schottii was a rather common hazard to the unwary.
     The soil under most of the rocks flipped was quite damp, in fact perhaps almost too much so as there was far less activity under the rocks than expected, primarily termites.

     Upon arrival at the parking area, Dale Ward and I took a quick tour which indicated a large amount of ant activity. It was obvious that nuptial flights had been going on for several days, and in fact were still going on. One of the most readily apparent fliers was Myrmecocystus mendax, There were numerous colonies in the area, all of which had sexuals waiting to fly. Pogonomyrmex barbatus was also busily pumping out sexuals as was Aphaenogaster cockerelli.

      We found ourselves a place to camp and got setup for the night. Now that we were pretty much settled it was time to get to work, after setting out several chicken scraps as bait, Dale and I began a more thorough investigation of the area. Shorlty after setting out the chicken we found Camponotus schaeferi on it, this was something of a surprise as this species is usually more nocturnal. Perhaps the overcast day was playing a part in the ants willingness to prowl around before the sun went down.

     Turning rocks did turn up a number of things though, primarily various Pheidole species, we also found colonies of Forelius and Ephebomyrmex huachucanus. Camponotus vicinus was especially common under the rocks and if we found no other ant, this is the species it would be. Colonies were very common and almost always filled with alates of both sexes.

     We did manage to find one foraging column of Neivamyrmex nigrescens, as Neivamyrmex was one of my main goals I was quite pleased even though it was only N. nigrescens

     The following morning we drove back down the canyon to explore along the slopes adjacent to the canyon, for what ever reason and against all expectation this area was quite devoid of life. The most notable species found at this location were Camponotus ulcerosus and a Cyphomyrmex species.