ANT RUSTLING IN ARIZONA
by J. Bethancourt
© copyright 2001 W.J.Bethancourt III
ANT RUSTLING IN ARIZONA
Ant rustling was quite common in the Arizona Territory. Seems as how the ranchers up along the Hassayampa River liked to fish for the Hassayampa Catfish, and there isn't anything that Hassayampa catfish like better than ants ..... see, the Hassayampa sometimes has water, and sometimes don't, so the catfish have adapted to swimming in either sand or water. When the river is low, the ants build their nests in the sand, and the catfish come along and eat them, and when they do, you can knock them on the head with a shovel because they have to come to the surface to spit out the legs.
Well, after a long dry spell, the ant population in the Hassayampa was getting pretty low, so the ranchers tried to buy ants from Mexico, being well known as the fattest ants there are in the world, but the Mexicans wouldn't sell. So they got up a posse, rode to Mexico, and rustled several million head and drove them North to Wickenburg. This proved to be quite a boon to the catfish, and provided the ranchers and the occasional drifter with many a tasty meal.
However, the local watering holes between Wickenburg and the Mexican border swore that they had never seen anything as rowdy as the "antboys" when they got to town, and swore that any further drives would be met with severe force. This movement was led by a resident of Phoenix name of Nolen, who showed how to divert the ants by spreading the rumor that there was a herd of elephants roaming around the banks of the Gila River ... and everyone of any education knows that an elephant's appetite for ants is simply enormous.
So when the ranchers of Wickenburg needed to re-supply with fresh ants, they had to drive them thru Yuma, and Yuma has never been the same ......
'Course, with the advent of the Fire Ant, the ranchers around Wickenburg have discovered something new.
They round them up in southern New Mexico, and ship them in converted cattle cars by rail to Phoenix, where they load them into trucks and haul the Fire Ants to the Hassayampa. There, the Fire Ants set up housekeeping, build their nests, and get eaten by the Hassayampa catfish with great relish.
This gives a good chili flavor to the fish, with an afterburn that will literally knock an Easterner down and make a California yuppie cry for his mother.
The heat of the Fire Ant diet is so intense that when the catfish eat them, the sand around their bodies is fused to glass, making them easily caught even without a shovel .... it pre-cooks them too, so you can just crack the glass around them and eat the fish on the spot.
The ranchers are rumored to be breeding an especially fiery Fire Ant, and intend to use them as flavoring in the next chili cook-off against Texas.
Ever noticed those rocks by the side of the road between the border of New Mexico and Amarillo? Out there on the plains there's a strange beast indeed: the Panhandle Hamadillo.
The Hamadillo has adapted to the conditions of the Panhandle by looking just like a rock. They move slowly, and have a very slow metabolism, so it's difficult to distinguish between a Hamadillo and a boulder. This effectively hides them from predators.
Every spring, the Hamadillo herds migrate West, about one hundred yards or so, and every fall, they return to their ancestral spawning grounds one hundred yards to the East. Those few who have observed this in the light of the full moon say that it is an impressive sight, though quite slow.
The Segasto Indians (a now extinct tribe of the Panhandle) taught the early settlers to hunt and cook the Hamadillo. Of course, this is a somewhat catch-as-catch-can thing, as the only way a Hamadillo can be differenced from a rock is by cooking. If, after cooking for 24 hours in boiling water you can eat it, it's a Hamadillo.
They're quite tasty.
You're probably wondering about those elephants along the Gila River, aren't you?
Well, about the same time that the Army brought in the camels to Arizona, the Navy, not to be outdone, brought in elephants, to pull the flatboats along the Gila River. It was quite a sight to see in the early days of Arizona Territory.
Now, most folks think that elephants eat leaves and such, but in actuality they only eat leaves when there are no ants available. Elephants are wonderfully adapted to eating ants. Their ears are large, to enable them to hear the ants moving around in their tunnels; their feet are large to let them stamp hard on the ground to scare the ants to the surface; and their trunks help them to suck up enormous quantities of ants at a time, not to mention snaking the trunks down into the burrows to get at the good parts.
You don't see the Gila River elephant herd much these days, because elephants think that camels are simply disgusting. All those camels strolling around Arizona disturbed the elephants so much that they went and hid in the Gila River canebrakes and only come out at night, to hunt for ants.
Have you ever wondered about those snow shovels in the homes of native Arizonans?
They're for the Sailcats.
The Common Arizona Sailcat is a phenomenon peculiar to Arizona summers. See, they start out as common house cats, but .... cats have an alarming tendency to run in front of moving cars, and this tends to get them flat in short order. They become Flatcats.
Now the sun in Arizona gets pretty hot, especially in the summer, and the air is DRY .... so it doesn't take long before the Flatcat dessicates into a pretty dry pancake there on the concrete.
Then you can scrape 'em off the road with your snowshovel and sail 'em like FrisbeesTM.
Sailcats!
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