Great Sand Dunes National Park

Recently I went on a family vacation out to Colorado. While of course we were there to see the scenery and do some hiking, but I just couldn’t pass up the chance to do some collecting in a whole new state. The highlight of the trip for me had to be Great Sand Dunes National Park. This was a beautiful oddity, large sand dunes on the edge of the Rocky Mountains. Even stranger was that people could rent sand boards or sleds to go down the dunes once they reached their desired height. Looked like fun though!

Big ol’ sandbox

One of the things that really struck me about this place was that in the visitor center there were pictures of a tiger beetle everywhere! This was something I hadn’t seen before. The staff at the park were actually trying to educate people on an insect. There were postcards, pennies, a painting, a whole display dedicated to the beetle’s ecology…it was an amazing thing to come across. Needless to say, I got very excited and wanted to try to find one of these beetles.

The Great Sand Dunes tiger beetle (Cicindela theatina) is a species endemic only to these dunes. This gives it a very small habitat and people are allowed to partake in recreational activities throughout the dunes. While this sounds like bad news for C. theatina, people aren’t as active in the places where the beetles are. Instead, they prefer to climb the dunes or play in Medano Creek. That and ATVs aren’t allowed in the park, dramatically cutting down on habitat damage (unlike what is seen at Utah’s Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park). 

Medano Creek in front of the dunes. Note the vegetation to the left.

After crossing the creek, I casually wandered about the vegetation before making my way up the dunes. There were plenty of small bees flying about, always catching my eye, but never being C. theatina. There were a large number of grasshoppers as well, perfectly camouflaged and springing up at the last moment.

The sparse vegetation still offered a refuge to invertebrates, especially those fleeing the hungry robber flies.

Great Sand Dunes grasshopper (Trimerotropis agrestis)

Finally I saw one! A beautiful C. theatina zipped in front of me. I got down to try to get a picture and off it went. I saw where it landed though and tried again. Same result. Third time’s the charm right? Wrong. After a couple more attempts, the beetle decided it had had enough of my nonsense and flew off where I couldn’t see it. It was a disappointing, but exhilarating moment (or should I say 15 minutes) because it meant that the beetles were here and I just had to keep trying. But first, I had to walk up the dunes with my family. The view from where we stopped was breathtaking, even if we didn’t climb the highest dune (699 feet is definitely up there, but we still managed to break 500 feet).

Simply stunning

 As they say, going up is the hard part, and how right they were. It took the better part of an hour to reach our highest point, but only about 10 minutes to get back down. Descent would have been faster with a sand board, but it was more entertaining to watch other people try that approach (spoiler: there were several people that went face-first into a dune). Once at the bottom, I beelined for a patch of vegetation to continue my search. Apparently I had chosen well, for there were at least 10 C. theatina that fled my approach. Moving much more cautiously, I managed to sneak up on a nice specimen. And then he was gone. Not to be stopped, I followed another who was running across the sands. I got close, it ran. I got close again, it ran. Repeat this several times (and include the girls that were just watching me and laughing as I army-crawled after this beetle) and finally I got my shots!

This is a gorgeous beetle, with lovely coloring and a great pattern. It cooperated with me for about a minute and then flew off to do tiger beetle things. I’m sure I could have given chase for more images, but I was just happy that I got the ones I did. This ended up being my highlight of the entire vacation, even though I did collect several very nice beetles. It’s just hard to beat a unique and rare species such as this. These beetles need to be protected so that future generations can enjoy them, from an entomological perspective and from the perspective of someone who takes joy in seeing something so small and beautiful.

For some more fun reading on C. theatina, check out this Beetles in the Bush post here.