Arizona Wildlife

When I hike across the Arizona landscape, I'm captivated by the rising mountain peaks, curving valleys, and miles of flat desert. As wonderful and breathtaking as these natural formations are, my true love comes in the form of our wildlife.

Arizona is chock full of wildlife. When most of your state is open desert, it allows for ecosystems to pop up and thrive. The issue with this, is sometimes we get more than we bargained for.

I've made sure to check everywhere I step, sit, or sleep in the fear one of Arizona's creepy crawlies sneaking up on me. This is a situation I would've never seen coming.

Arizona is home to a wide variety of natural wildlife, none more impressive than its avian population. There are approximately 550 different species of birds from border to border of the Grand Canyon State.

One of Arizona's greatest strengths is our diversity of wildlife. Despite being an arid desert, the state of Arizona hosts a wide variety of plant and animal life.

Growing up on the east coast, when someone asked me to envision a desert, Arizona was likely the first image to come to mind. Its place in old western and cowboy movies definitely helped, but with sand and dirt coving the ground and Cacti growing at every square inch, it's hard not to view it as such.

This thing is the creepiest, weirdest, most disgusting flying insect I have ever heard of.

As summer kicks off, insects are going to be returning in droves, and some of the world's deadliest will be among them.

Reddit user, Elkas, shared the above video after they caught this lone male coati enjoying some of the suet they leave for the birds.

Despite Arizona having a diverse population of wildlife, there are some animals that you may have a hard time seeing if seeing them at all.