Another Ghost

A little late for Halloween, I present to you another of Connie Barlow's Ghosts of Evolution, the devil's claw. This one does better than some of the other survivors, like Osage orange and honey locust, because horses and other equids are "back" on their old home ground, and because humans and cows make pretty good substitutes. This specimen wrapped around my ankle in the Sevilleta Wildlife Refuge. They do pretty well in the less disturbed parts of the Rio Grande Valley.

I have always thought that their genus name, Proboscidea, is much more appropriate than "devil's claw". Not only did they grow alongside the mammoths; doesn't this twin specimen look a bit like two mammoth heads?