by Greg Mayer

Evolution 2013, the joint annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB), and the American Society of Naturalists (ASN), was held in Snowbird, Utah, June 21-25, 2013. I stayed at the Alta Lodge, about a mile further up Little Cottonwood Canyon from Snowbird. It was the first time I’d visited the Rocky Mountains (aside from a visit to the Black Hills, an isolated outlier in South Dakota), and the biological diversity was striking. In much of North America the most diverse and visible group of mammals are the squirrels, and this is especially so in the Rockies.The most common squirrel in Snowbird and Alta was the Uinta ground squirrel (Spermophilus armatus).

Known locally as “potguts“, these little fellas were everywhere at Snowbird, inhabiting lawns and walkways (notice the asphalt substrate), entering the event tent, and boldly begging from passers-by. The natural habitat of these critters is rocky slopes and meadows. Some had burrows in the lawns, but perhaps a bit more naturally some inhabited cracks and crevices among the rocks.

Also on the lawns, but less common and a bit more skittish was the Yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris). Like their close relative in the the east, the woodchuck, marmots are fat squirrels that live underground. Unlike the potguts, who were active all day long and into the evening, the marmots seemed to be most visible in the morning.

The only tree squirrel was the spruce or red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). They were quite loud and noisy, and active in the morning before many people were around, foraging for leftovers and in garbage cans. In the east, these squirrels deserve their usual common name of “red”, but these were quite gray; the grayish ones are sometimes called spruce squirrels (spruce being a common tree in the coniferous forest favored by this species). The white eye ring and black line separating the flank and ventral coloration are typical. They are smaller than the gray squirrel of eastern North America, and seem to curl the tail over their backs more habitually.

There are many other species of mammals in this part of Utah, and I saw two mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) strolling the canyon slopes, and a coyote (Canis latrans) standing in the middle of the road (bigger and less scruffy than Wisconsin coyotes). Although I did not see one, moose (Alces alces) were seen a number of times. One attendee told me of how he spotted a moose in the canyon creek bed one morning and followed it carefully along the canyon. When he arrived at the meeting site, and told his colleagues breathlessly of his adventure, they replied “Oh yeah, it was up here in the parking lot, and we saw it wander down toward the creek.”

While driving up the Canyon from the valley, at our driver’s suggestion I kept an eye out for mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus)  on the rocky slopes. Unfortunately I did not see any of these magnificent animals. During glacial times, they undoubtedly occurred in the area, but were not native in historic times, perhaps having disappeared during one of the warmer periods of the Holocene. Introductions, eventually successful, began in 1967, showing that difficulties of dispersal, not habitat suitability, limited their range. While, on rather dubious grounds, the state of Utah claims they were native in historic times, it is nonetheless true that they have been returned to part of their prehistoric range.